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of  Utopian  Literature 


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BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


T 


PIE  PILGRIM  AND  THE  SHRINE.      4th  Edi- 
tii)n,  i2mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 
One  of  the  wisest  and  most  charming  of  books." — Westminster  EivieiJ. 


H 


II. 

IGHER  LAW.     A  ROMANCE.      i2mo,  cloth, 
$1-75. 

"There  is  no  novel,  in  short,  which  can  be  compared  to  it  for  its  widtli  of 
view,  its  cultivation,  its  poetry,  and  its  deep  human  intere.-t,  .  .  .  except 
'Romola.'  ^'—Westminster  Review. 

"Its  careful  study  of  character,  and  the  ingenuity  and  independence  of  its 
speculations,  will  commend  it  to  the  admiration  even  of  those  who  difter  from 
its  conclusions  most  gva.yt;\y .'" —BritLth  Quarterly  RevUiv. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  Publishers,  New  York. 


BY    AND    BY 


gin  Jistoiical  ^loniana 


THE    FUTURE 


EDWARD    MAITLAND, 

AUTHOR    OF 
THE   PILGRIM    AND    THE    SHRINE,"     'HIGHER    LAW,"   ETC. 


"  In  those  days  shall " 

Ancient  Prophecy. 


NEW  YORK: 

G.     P.     PUTNAM'S    SONS, 

FOURTH   AVENUE   AND   TWENTY-THIRD   STREET. 

LONDON:    RICHARD    BENTLEY  AND   SON. 

1873- 


f5aR 

Al  J  "5  2  13 


PREFACE. 


The  Pilgrim  and  the  Shrine  and  Higher  Law  present,  re- 
spectively, the  evolution  of  religion  and  morals  out  of  the 
contact  of  the  external  world  with  the  human  consciousness,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  faculties  themselves  out  of  the  lower  instincts. 
Similarly,  By  and  By  presents  a  state  of  society  in  which  the 
intuitions  are  promoted  to  their  proper  supremacy  over  tradition 
and  convention.  In  endeavoring  to  exhibit  the  capacity  of 
Nature  to  produce,  unaided,  and  provided  only  that  its  best  be 
given  fair  play,  the  highest  results  in  character,  and  conduct, 
and  faith,  the  purpose  of  the  entire  series  shows  itself  to  be  no 
other  than  the  rehabilitation  of  nature ;  a  purpose  supremely 
religious,  inasmuch  as  to  rehabilitate  nature  is  to  rehabilitate 
the  Author  of  nature, — the  failure  of  the  work  involving  that 
of  the  maker. 

To  find  a  society  resting  solely  on  the  intelligence  and  moral 
sense  of  its  members,  as  developed  by  rational  education,  it  was 
necessary  to  go  to  a  yet  far  distant  future.  By  and  By,  then, 
is  an  attempt  to  depict  the  condition  of  the  world  at  a  time 
■when  our  own  country,  at  least,  shall  have  made  such  advance 
in  the  solution  of  the  problems  which  harass  the  present,  and 
shall  be  so  far  relieved  of  all  disabling  artifices,  social,  political, 


iv  .  PREFACE. 

and  i-f'ligious,  that  individuals  will  be  able,  without  penalty  or 
reproach,  to  fashion  their  lives  according  to -their  own  prefer- 
ences, the  sole  external  limitation  being  that  imposed  by  the 
law  of  equal  liberty  for  all. 

Tu  depict  such  a  society  without  falling  into  the  extrava- 
gances of  Utopianism,  certain  conditions  must  be  observed,  the 
main  one  of  which  is  that  human  nature  be  regarded  as  a 
"  constant  quantity."  Whatever  the  progress  made  in  knowl- 
edge and  the  art  of  living,  all  differences  will  be  of  degree,  not 
of  kind.  Wherefore,  unless  the  period  taken  be  very  much  in 
advance  of  that  contemplated  in  By  and  By,  and  altogether 
unthinkable  by  us,  the  conditions. of  existence  will  still  necessi- 
tate the  production  of  types  varying  widely  in  character  and 
development,  and  therefore  of  lives  consisting  of  efforts  resulting 
more  or  less  in  alternating  failure  and  success.  No  matter  how 
severely  scientific  the  training,  there  will  still  be  a  religious  side 
to  man's  nature,  a  side  through  which  the  intuitions  will  seek 
towards  their  source,  and  deem  it  to  be  found  in  the  eternal 
consciousness,  inherent  in  the  universe  of  being,  that  for  them 
underlies  all  phenomena. 

It  must  be  expected  that,  as  in  the  past,  so  in  the  future, 
there  will  be  men  endowed  with  a  genius  for  that  righteousness 
which  recognizes  a  relation  to  the  whole  as  well  as  to  the  part, 
and  as  liable  under  the  influence  of  enthusiasm  to  transcend 
the  bounds  of  strict  sanity,  and  in  their  ecstacy  to  confound 
their  spiritual  imaginings  with  their  physical  perceptions, — as 
ever  were  founders  of  religions  of  old. 

With  regard  to  Avoman,  it  must  be  expected  .that  no  training 
will  prevent  the  emotional  from  still  predominating  in  her 
constitution,  and  retaining  her  in  a  position  in  respect  to  man 
relatively  the  same  that  she  has  ever  held.     It  must  be  ex- 


PREFACE.  V 

pected,  too,  that  the  first  choice  of  the  ideal  man  of  the  »• 
future,  as  just  described,  will  be  the  woman  who  most  nearly 
for  him  represents  nature,  genuine  and  unsophisticated;  that 
though  he  will  find  such  nature  very  winning  and  sweet,  he 
will  also  find  it  very  perverse  and  wayward,  and  hard  to  arouse 
to  a  sense  of  the  ideal ;  but  because  it  is  true  and  genuine, 
and  loves  its  best,  he  will  be  tender  and  enduring  to  the 
end,  no  matter  at  what  cost  to  himself.  It  must  be  expected 
that  the  conflict  between  soul  and  sense  will  still  be  illus- 
trated in  the  facts  and  relations  of  life  ;  that  to  much  love 
much  more  will  be  forgiven  than  now,  when  the  compulsion 
is  that  of  the 'sentiments  and  not  of  law;  and  that  while  the 
selfishness,  insincerity,  and  uncharity  which  characterize  the 
merely  conventional,  will  be  the  sole  unpardonable  sips,  and 
a  moral  jar  be  held  as  justifying  divorce,  even  these  will 
be  "vanishing  qualities"  under  the  gradual  elimination  from 
society  of  the  conditions  which  favor  their  development. 

It  may  be  further  surmised  of  such  a  character  as  has  been 
indicated,  that,  while  differing  from  his  prototypes  of  the  past 
in  being  rich  instead  of  poor,  educated  instead  of  untaught, 
married  instead  of  single  (for  how  else  can  he  afford  a  com- 
plete example  of  the  ideal  life  to  others  ?),  his  enthusiasm 
expending  itself  on  the  practical,  and  his  whole  life  illus- 
trating the  gospel,  that  man  is  to  be  redeemed  by  works,  in- 
asmuch as  he  has  it  in  his  power  to  amend  the  conditions 
of  his  own  existence,  he  will  not  altogether  escape  the  fate 
that  has  ever  befallen  those  who  have  been  enthusiasts  for 
humanity,  and  that  the  sufferings  which  make  perfect  will 
not  be  wanting  to  him. 

While  our  Romance  of  the  Future  thus  becomes  in  a  meas- 
ure   transformed  into   an  allegory,   and  its  characters  present 


Vi  PREFACE. 

themselves  under  a  typical  Aspect,  it  may  surely  be  hoped 
that,  whatever  the  view  taken  of  details,  tlie  impression  pro- 
duced hy  the  whole  will  be  one  of  hopefulness  as  to  the 
possibilities  of  humanity ;  and  that  it  is  not  among  what  has 
been  termed  the  "literature  of  despair,"  tliat  By  and  By  a,nd 
its  companion  books  can  fairly  be  catalogued. 

London,  July,  1873.  [ 


BY  AND  BY. 


CHAPTEE  I. 


Descending  slowly,  surely,  helplessly,  towards  earth ;  the 
stars  growing  dimmer,  until  their  light  is  utterly  extinguished 
by  the  mists  which,  clammy,  dense,  and  oh !  so  cold,  are  wrap- 
ping us  round  as  in  a  death-shroud.  The  silence  absolute ; 
and  nothing  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  place  that  is  to 
receive  us  on  quitting  our  aerial  course.  Is  it  land  ?  Is  it 
sea  ?  Mountain  or  plain  ?  A  wilderness  of  snow,  or  a  field 
of  ice  ? 

"  Imagine  a  group  of  conscious  souls  in  the  interval  between 
two  existences,  on  the  point  of  being  ushered  into  a  state  of 
Being,  absolutely  new  and  untried,  and  devoid  of  the  confidence 
which  comes  only  of  experience, — and  you  may  imagine  the 
depth  of  those  sentiments  of  awe  and  mystery  which  possessed 
myself  and  my  comrades  on  that  night,  some  five  and  forty 
years  ago — night  so  dread  in  itself,  yet  but  for  which,  and  its 
relation  to  ^us,  this  our  latter  age  would  never  have  been  illu- 
mined by  the  bright,  true,  pure  spirit  of  him  concerning  whom 
I  have  undertaken  to  tell." 

The  speaker  was  old  Bertie  Greathead.  The  place  was  the 
common  hall  of  the  Triangle.  The  audience  consisted  of  the 
members,  young  and  old,  of  that  famous  Club,  besides  some 
other  persons.  The  occasion  was  the  first  anniversary  of  the 
death  of  one  of  the  members,  towards  whose  memoirs,  written 
by  mj'self,  Lawrence  Wilmer,  Bertie's  narrative  was  a  contri- 
bution. 

Having  uttered  the  above  sentences  with  tearful  eyes  and 
1 


2  BY  AND  BY. 

fiilti'iing  voice,  Bertie  paused  and  gazed  upon  his  hearers.  The 
evident  sympathy  he  found  in  their  looks  reassured  him,  and, 
with  stronger  accents,  he  began  his  formal  relation. 

"  Members  of  the  Triangle,  and  other  friends  here  assembled  ; 
— The  narrative  which  I  have  undertaken  to  contribute  towards 
a  connected  history  of  the  loved  friend  we  have  lost,  claims  to 
be  but  a  simple  statement  of  facts.  As  most  of  you  know,  the 
literary  function  is  not  mine.  Although  for  many  years  a 
leader  and  teacher  of  youth,  my  business  has  been  aerographi- 
cal  and  locomotive,  not  mental  or  scholastic.  In  short,  I  am 
simply  a  professor  of  aerial  navigation.  It  was  on  one  occasion, 
when  returning  from  an  excursion  taken  partly  for  the  sake  of 
visiting  foreign  regions,  partly  for  the  purpose  of  inculcating 
my  art,  that  the  series  of  uncommon  incidents  occurred  without 
which  there  would  have  been  no  occasion  for  me  to  appear  now 
before  you. 

"The  time  is  forty-five  years  ago  last  Christmas.  Of  the 
youths  entrusted  to  my  charge  for  an  aerial  trip,  to  two  only 
shall  I  have  occasion  to  refer,  namel}^,  Mr.  Wilmer,  the  father — 
long  since  dead — of  our  dear  Lawrence  here,  and  our  distin- 
guished friend,  Charles  Avenil,  who,  being  unavoidably  absent 
this  evening,  is  represented  by  his  nephew  and  other  relatives. 
It  is  of  a  third,  who  joined  our  party  on  its  route,  and  of  the 
way  in  which  he  joined  it,  that  I  have  more  particularly  to 
tell  you. 

"  We  were  bound  homewards  from  a  sojourn  in  the  volcanic 
isles  of  the  North  Pole,  a  district  which  had  th§n  recently 
been  made  available  for  settlement,  through  the  perfection  to 
which  the  science  of  aerial  navigation  and  universal  telegraphy 
had  been  brought.  Surrounded  at  a  distance  by  a  rarely  passa- 
ble barrier  of  ice,  these  islands,  nevertheless,  enjoy  a  fair 
climate  for  a  considerable  portion  of  the  year,  owing  in  part 
to  the  presence  of  oceanic  currents  from  the  Equator,  and  in 
part  to  the  prevalence  of  volcanic  fires  at  a  short  distance 
beneath  the  soil. 

"These  facts  are,  doubtless,  familiar  to  most  persons  present. 
But,   as  I  desire  to   be   fully  comprehended    by  all,  even  the 


BY  AND  BY.  3 

youngest,  of  my  hearers,  I  must  request  indulgence  if,  for  the 
sake  of  some,  I  go  more  fully  into  detail  than  is  requisite  for 
others.  The  garrulity  and  tediousness  naturally  appertaining 
to  seventy-five  years  of  age,  I  shall  endeavor  to  suppress.   ' 

"  Desiring  to  avoid  the  crowd  of  summer  tourists,  and  to 
studjr  without  distraction  the  meteorological  and  magnetic  phe- 
nomena presented  by  the  country  under  the  total  deprivation 
of  sunlight ;  as  well  as  to  examine  at  leisure  the  manners  and 
traditions  of  the  tribes  whose  discovery  by  the  first  aerial  polar 
expedition  made  the  great  sensation  of  a  comparatively  recent 
generation,  owing  to  the  enormous  and  undoubted  antiquity  of 
their  records,  which  showed  that,  though  isolated  from  the  rest 
of  mankind  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years,  they  yet  possessed 
the  same  characteristics  of  form,  manners,  and  religious  sym- 
bolism to  which  we  had  been  wont  to  ascribe  a  far  later  origin 
— for  these  reasons,  I  say,  we  had  extended  our  sojourn  nearly 
to  mid-winter,  intending  to  return  to  England  in  time  to  spend 
the  Festival  of  the  Year  with  our  friends  at  home. 

"  The  winter  solstice  was  just  commencing  when  we  em- 
barked on  our  return  journey  at  the  North  Polar  Aerial  Transit 
Station,  in  the  vehicle  in  which  we  had  made  the  outward  voy- 
age, my  o^Ti  favorite  aeromotive,  a  machine  whose  stanchness 
had  been  proved  in  many  a  long  and  stormy  flight  over  all  parts 
of  the  earth.  How  it  came  to  fail  me  on  this  occasion  is  still 
a  matter  of  doubt.  It  was  probably  through  the  action  of  a 
sudden  blast  of  intensely  cold  air  lapon  the  cylinder  of  the  de- 
composer (for  it  was  a  magnetic-atmospheric  propeller).  How- 
ever, in  mid-air,  and  mid-way  upon  our  voyage,  we  were  so 
crippled  as  to  have  no  choice  but  to  descend,  and  proceed  either 
by  land  or  sea,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  element  upon 
which  we  might  alight,  for  the  car  was  adapted  to  either  pur- 
pose. 

''By  aid  of  our  parachute  apparatus,  which,  in  spite  of  the 
intense  cold,  worked  admirably,  we  were,  in  a  very  few  minutes 
after  the  accident,  slowlj^  and  steadily  descending  towards  the 
earth.  The  only  question  of  any  importance  was  as  to  where 
precisely  we  should  find  ourselves  on  alighting.     In  the  event 


4  BY  AND  BY. 

of  further  progress  being  impracticable,  and  the  country  being 
devoid  of  supplies,  we  still  had  sufficient  to  keep  us  until  we 
could  telegraph  for,  and  receive  aid. 

"  It  is  true  that  in  those  days  the  network  of  wires  which 
now  cover  both  sea  and  land,  like  the  lines  of  latitude  and 
longitude  in  the  maps  devised  by  our  ingenious  ancestors,  was 
but  scantily  diffused  over  the  Arctic  regions.  But  even  then 
there  were  points  for  communication,  though  comparatively  few 
and  far  between  ;  and  we  did  not  doubt  but  that,  alight  where 
we  might,  we  should  be  able,  by  traveling  no  very  great  dis- 
tance, either  by  land  or  sea,  to  summons  from  the  Central 
Home  Depot  an  aeromotive  to  our  relief. 

"  And  here  I  must  be  pardoned  a  digression  if,  for  the  sake 
of  these  little  ones,  I  stop  a  moment  to  call  their  attention  to 
the  blessings  which  civilization  has  conferred  upon  the  world 
in  our  days.  Once  upon  a  time,  and  for  myriads  of  ages,  it  was 
a  chief  business  of  one  generation  of  men  to  destroy  the  im- 
provements made  by  another.  Amid  the  universal  wreck  and 
havoc  of  those  Ages  of  War,  such  a  scheme  as  our  universal 
network  of  telegraph-wires  would  have  been  impossible,  if  only 
for  its  costliness.  It  is  true  that  a  war  involving  equal,  or  even 
greater,  outlay,  would  have  been  undertaken  with  readiness  and 
lightness  of  heart,  so  that  it  was  not  the  cost  alone  that  inter- 
fered, but  the  fact  that  humanity  was  still  in  its  destructive 
stage,  and  therefore  disinclined  to  make  the  same  effort  on 
behalf  of  construction.  It  is  because  we  have  got  rid  of  the 
waste  of  war,  and  vast  armaments  for  national  offence  and  de- 
fence, and  no  longer  absorb  labor  in  useless  works,  or  withdraw 
it  from  working  altogether,  that  we  have  been  able  to  construct 
and  maintain  works  of  such  vast  magnitude  and  utility  as  the 
Floating  Oceanic  Telegraph  System,  and  the  corresponding 
Terrestrial  Service. 

"  Our  precise  position  was  unknown  to  us.  Under  ordinary 
circumstances  this  would  have  been  of  little  consequence.  Such 
was  the  speed  of  my  aeromotive — scarcely  surpassed  even  by 
later  inventions — that  she  must  have  been  very  far  out  of  her 
course  to  be  unable  to  recover  it  in  a  few  hours.    The  voyage  to 


BY  AND    BY.  5 

the  Pole  is  simple  enoiigli.  Travelers  have  but  to  steer  north- 
ward until  the  needle  points  vertically  downwards,  and  then  to 
look  about  for  a  spot  on  which  to  alight.  Twenty-four  hours 
due  north,  at  an  average  speed  of  a  hundred  miles  an  hour,  is 
bound  to  bring  them  in  sight  of  the  volcanic  fires  which,  rising 
from  the  summits  of  the  Polar  Mountains,  make  such  convenient 
beacons  for  aeronauts.  The  time,  however,  varies  somewhat, 
owing  to  the  action  of  the  polar  atmospheric  currents,  which 
frequently  divert  the  traveler  from  his  direct  course,  and  com- 
j)el  him  to  approach  the  Pole  in  a  spiral  direction. 

"  Similarly,  in  returning  from  the  Pole,  the  spiral  direction 
is  taken  at  the  start,  as  it  happened  in  our  case ;  and  it  was 
the  impossibility  of  ascertaining  the  velocity  of  these  currents 
that  preventing  us  from  calculating  our  position.  In  any  other 
region  we  should  have  remained  aloft  until  daylight,  and  then 
leisurely  selected  a  spot  whereon  to  descend.  But  as  the  acci- 
dent to  our  machinery  occurred  in  the  middle  of  an  arctic  winter, 
when  the  night  is  several  months  in  duration,  it  was  impossible 
to  remain  floating  about  waiting  for  daylight. 

"  Well,  when  it  was  indicated  by  the  barometer  that  we  must 
be  in  the  lower  stratum  of  air,  and  therefore  very  close  to  the 
earth's  surface,  we  adjusted  our  electric-reflector  lamp  so  as  to 
project  its  brilliant  colmnn  of  light  directly  downwards.  All 
that  we  discovered,  however,  was  the  fact  that  on  all  sides,  as 
far  as  we  could  see,  the  earth  Avas  covered  by  a  mist  so  dense  as 
to  conceal  entirely  from  our  view  the  spot  we  were  aj^proaching. 
We  Avere  therefore  unable  to  determine  whether  it  Avas  for 
contact  Avith  a  solid  or  a  fluid  element  that  Ave  ought  to  be  pre- 
pared. 

"  Descending  very  sloAA^ly  and  cautiously  ;  checking  our  down- 
ward movement  by  working  the  spiral  wings  of  our  machine 
with  our  hands,  and  Avatching  intently  for  any  sight  or  sound 
that  might  indicate  our  Avhereabouts,  Ave  were  disposed  to  be 
somcAvhat  appalled  by  the  intense  stillness  that  prevailed.  Of 
course,  high  up,  the  stillness  is  equally  intense,  save  only  when 
broken  by  the  noise  of  the  propelling  machinery,  and  the  rush- 
ing by  of  the  air.     But  there,  close  to  the  earth,  its  character- 


G  BY  AND  BY. 

istics  seemed  different.  I  liave  no  doubt  my  young  friend, 
Lawrence,  or  at  least  Mr.  Avenil,  junior,  has  heard  his  relation 
speak  of  the  impression  it  made  upon  us " 

"  I  remember,"  said  Avenil,  "  my  uncle  saying  that  "Wilmer's 
father,  who  was  then  about  fifteen  years  old,  asked  if  it  were 
possible  that  they  had  missed  the  earth  and  got  foul  of  the  dark 
side  of  the  moon,  or  some  asteroid  in  which  light  and  life  are 
extinct ;  and  that  as  he  was  speaking  you  were  all  knocked  off 
3'our  feet  as  if  by  some  invisible  vindicator  of  the  honor  of  the 
heavenly  body  in  question." 

"  True,  he  was  of  a  poetical  temperament,  like  his  son  after 
him.  But  the  suggestion  turned  out  to  be  more  appropriate 
than  at  first  appeared  likely.  It  was  neither  earth  nor  ocean 
that  was  about  to  receive  ixs.  Our  first  intimation  that  we 
were  nearing  anything,  came  in  the  form  of  a  blow  from  some 
unseen  body.  Recoiling  a  little,  we  continued  our  slow  descent, 
until  presently  we  received  another  concussion  ;  a  slighter  one, 
for  we  rebounded  but  a  very  little  way  from  the  substance 
which  had  given  it.  The  next  sensation  was  that  of  sliding 
down  a  nearly  perpendicular  slope.  It  was  clear  that  we  were 
alighting  upon  the  side  of  a  steep  mountain  ;  and  supi)osing 
that  we  were  in  about  the  eightieth  degree  of  latitude,  I  hoped 
to  find  ourselves  either  on  the  north  coast  of  Greenland,  or  in 
Spitzbergen,  or  on  some  other  land  that  borders  on  the  Arctic 
circle,  and  therefore  within  reach  of  a  telegraph  point,  and  con- 
sequently of  succor :  for  points  had  recently  been  placed  upon 
all  the  principal  summits  for  the  convenience  of  aerial  voyagers. 
That  is,  upon  the  principal  permanent  summits ;  for  of  course 
icebergs  were  not  taken  into  account ;  and  it  was  upon  a  gigantic 
iceberg  that,  on  finally  settling  down,  we  found  ourselves  safely 
deposited." 


BY  AND  BY. 


CHAPTER  II. 


The  first  thing  to  be  investigated  was  tlie  practicability  of 
repairing  our  crippled  machinery,  with  a  view  to  continuing 
our  voyage.  A  little  examination  showed  that  this  was  out 
of  the  question.  The  next  point  was  whether  we  could  reach 
the  edge  of  the  floe,  and  launch  the  car  upon  the  open  sea. 
Before  this  could  be  done,  it  was  necessary  that  the  mist  should 
clear  off,  for  that  was  so  dense  as  utterly  to  defy  the  rays  of  our 
reflector.  A  third  point  to  be  determined  was  that  of  the  berg's 
mobility,  that  is,  whether  it  was  upon  a  motionless  continent, 
or  a  drifting  island  that  we  had  alighted. 

"In  the  meantime,  it  was  necessary  to  take  precautions 
against  the  cold.  By  the  aid  of  our  reflector,  we  ascertained 
that  we  had  slidden  into  a  sort  of  wedge-shaped  hollow,  or 
crater,  with  sides  vertical  or  overhanging,  rising  some  fifteen 
or  twenty  feet  above  us  all  round,  except  on  the  side  nearly 
facing  the  declivity  of  the  berg,  where  there  was  an  opening 
some  yards  in  width.  The  bottom  of  our  crater  was  tolerably 
smooth  and  level,  and  so,  taking  all  things  into  consideration, 
we  decided  that  we  coidd  do  no  better  than  remain  there  for  the 
present.  And  in  a  little  while  after  touching  ground,  or  rather 
ice,  we  were  snugly  ensconced  in  the  angle  of  the  hollow, 
between  solid  encircling  walls  of  green  ice,  which,  inclining 
over  head,  made  an  admirable  shelter,  especially  when  supple- 
mented by  the  floaters  of  the  aeromotive,  which  we  detached 
for  the  purpose.  Indeed,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  we  were 
comfortabl}^  settled,  both  as  regards  our  mental  and  our  physical 
condition,  for  those  with  me  had  too  much  confidence  in  me, 
and  I'had  too  much  confidence  in  the  resources  still  left  to  us 
by  science,  to  think  of  despairing  of  our  ultimate  safet}'. 

"  Let  me  enumerate  those  resources.  It  was  still  mid-winter, 
so  that  the  berg  would  not  melt  or  turn  over.  We  had  provis- 
ions that  might  last  us  a  couple  of  weeks  or  more,  and  we  might 
add  to  our  store  by  catching  some  seals  or  bears.  Our  ice-house 


8  BY  AND  BY. 

was  so  warm  that  we  could  save  all  our  combustibles  for  the 
purpose  of  illumination.  It  is  true  there  was  not  much  chance 
at  tliat  season  of  a  traveller  passing  over  our  lieads,  or  of  his 
perceiving  our  signals  of  distress,  if  there  were  one.  But  there 
was  a  chance,  and  it  was  my  main  hope,  though  its  success 
depended  uj^on  the  thickness  of  the  ice,  and  upon  our  finding 
an  aperture  through  which  we  could  get  at  the  water.  This, 
again,  however,  would  be  of  little  use,  unless  our  resting-place 
were  in  motion,  for  the  chance  consisted  in  our  being  able  to 
drop  a  grappling  line  through  into  the  sea,  and  hooking  up  a 
wire  by  which  w'e  could  at  once  communicate  with  home,  and 
summon  relief.  The  floating  telegraphs  have  all  been  con- 
structed with  this  view ;  so  that  persons  at  sea  are  always 
within  a  few  miles  of  some  link  in  the  magnetic  network.  We 
knew  that  it  Avas  not  impossible  that  even  at  that  moment, 
while  upon  the  top  of  the  ice-floe,  its  under  side  might  be  in 
contact  with  one  of  these  wires,  and  that  it  was  only  necessary 
to  reach  it  in  order  to  obtain  aid  in  a  few  hours. 

"  But  to  this  desirable  end  two  things  were  almost  certainly 
necessary.  "We  must  get  at  the  water  in  order  to  sink  our  line  ; 
and  we  must  be  in  motion  in  order  to  catch  the  wire.  This  once 
caught,  any  one  of  the  lads  of  my  party  could  communicate  with 
home  by  means  of  his  magnetic  pocket-speaker,  as  readily  as 
tell  the  time  by  his  w^atch. 

"  It  is  a  strangely  uncomfortable  sensation,  that  of  being  in 
the  dark,  and  without  the  slightest  notion  of  the  kind  of  place 
one  is  in.  Beside  the  discomfort  we  ex^^erienced  on  this  account, 
there  was  the  necessity  of  learning  something  about  our  imme- 
diate surroundings,  if  we  were  to  escape  by  leaving  them. ,  So 
we  spent  much  time  in  endeavoring  to  grope  around  our  cave. 
Whoever  undertook  the  office  of  explorer,  was  always  made  fast 
by  a  cord  to  keep  liiiu  from  .slipping  away  or  otherwisejbeing 
lost.  AVe  made  several  of  these  attempts  without  any  satisfac- 
tory result,  for  the  ice  sloped  away  so  steeply  on  all  sides  when 
we  had  got  just  outside  the  cave,  that  it  was  with  difficulty  w-e 
could  draw  the  explorer  back  to  us.  It  seemed  precisely  as  if 
we  were  in  the  crater  of  a  volcano,  with  a  break  in  the  wall  on 


BY  AND  BY.  9 

one  side.  Tlie  tliiclcness  of  the  fog  continued  to  neutralize  all 
attempts  to  guage  the  darkness  with  the  reflector. 

"  My  last  attempt  in  this  direction  was  prompted  by  a  sur- 
mise of  so  uncomfortable  a  nature,  that  I  was  anxious  to  keep  it 
to  myself.  I  had,  for  reasons  obvious  to  the  scientific  mind, 
erected  the  aeromotire's  pendulum  in  the  centre  of  our  nook,  so 
as  to  be  always  readily  observable,  and  I  had  given  the  lads 
strict  injunctions  to  communicate  to  me  its  slightest  movement. 
For  the  first  day  or  two  it  was  motionless.  Then  occasional 
tremors  were  observed  to  be  passing  through  it.  This  made  me 
watch  anxiously  for  the  next  development.  The  fog  was  our 
chief  enemy  in  the  present.  A  steady  oscillation  of  the  pendu- 
lum would  indicate  a  rolling  motion  in  the  ice,  that  could  only 
proceed  from  a  storm,  which  though  at  first  distant,  would  in 
all  probability  soon  arrive  and  disperse  the  fog.  The  larger  and 
more  compact  the  ice-field,  the  smaller  would  be  the  arc  de- 
scribed by  the  pendulum.  This  was  obvious.  It  ought  to  have 
been  equally  obvious  that  the  higher  we  were  above  the  sea- 
level,  the  larger  that  arc  would  be.  But  I  confess  that  this  had 
not  occurred  to  me  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  now  speaking. 
The  situation  was  far  from  being  a  familiar  one.  Mountains 
don't  rock  or  roll. 

"  Well,  it  was  the  period  we  treated  as  night,  and  for  which 
we  turned  in  to  sleep,  when  I  was  watching  the  movements  of 
the  pendulum  with  a  perplexity  that  increased  as  they  increased 
and  varied.  I  thought  every  one  except  myself  was  asleep. 
Suddenly,  to  my  astonishment  and  alarm,  the  pendulum,  in- 
stead of  going  backwards  and  forwards  over  the  diameter  of 
the  circle  inscribed  below  it,  changed  its  direction,  and  described 
a  circvilar  movement,  passing  completely  round  over  the  circum- 
ference of  the  indicating  circle. 

"  '  It's  no  use,  Master  Bertie,'  said  a  voice  which  at  first 
startled  me  by  its  unexpectedness,  but  which  I  recognized  as 
that  of  the  young  Avenil,  who,  instead  of  sleeping,  had  been 
quietly  exercising  his  precociously  scientific  faculties  in  watch- 
ing the  pendulum,  and  drawing  his  own  inferences.  'It's  no 
use  your  trying  to  keep  things  to  yourseK,  for  fear  of  frighten- 
ing us.     Look  at  this  rod.' 


10  BY  AND  BY. 

"  Resting  one  end  of  a  short  bar  upon  the  floor,  he  made  the 
otlier  end  slowly  describe  a  circle  in  the  air. 

"  'This  is  where  we  are,'  he  said,  pointing  to  the  upper  end  of 
the  bar.  '  It's  just  as  well  we  didn't  lower  any  of  the  boys  fur- 
ther down  when  we  were  prospecting  the  outside  of  our  hollow 
tree.     I  shall  go  to  sleep  now.     Good-night.' 

"  He  had  made  the  discovery  first,  a  discovery  which  caused 
me  to  gasp  with  apprehension.  At  that  moment  a  rushing 
sound  as  of  wind  attracted  my  attention.  I  went  to  the  aper- 
ture of  the  cave  and  looked  out.  The  sight  confirmed  my  worst 
fears.  The  fog  was  entirely  gone.  Overhead  shone  the  stars 
out  of  a  sky  intensely  crystalline  and  black,  where  the  stream- 
ers of  an  Aurora  darted  their  pale  colors  athwart  it.  Towering 
before  me  was  the  steep  slope  of  the  loftiest  portion  of  the  berg, 
adown  the  side  of  which  we  had  slidden ;  and  below  me  and  on 
all  sides  were  depths  apparently  unfathomable.  To  make  sure 
before  communicating  my  discovery,  I  returned  into  the  cave 
and  brought  out  the  reflector.  Turning  on  the  light  to  its  full- 
est extent,  and  directing  the  rays  downwards,  the  whole  truth 
was  revealed.  It  was  upon  no  level  ice-field  that  we  had  alight- 
ed, nor  even  at  the  foot  of  an  ice  precipice,  but  on  the  top  of 
one  of  the  highest  peaks  of  a  lofty  berg,  whence  descent  seemed 
to  be  impossible.  And  not  only  was  the  berg  in  motion,  but, 
as  the  pendulum  indicated,  it  was  rolling  as  if  approaching  the 
period  when  through  the  action  of  a  warm  sea-current  upon  its 
immersed  portion,  it  was  liable  to  turn  completely  over. 

"  However,  as  the  danger  of  such  a  catastrophe  did  not  ap- 
pear to  be  imminent,  the  discovery  I  had  made  still  afforded 
room  for  hope.  We  were  in  motion.  That  was  a  valuable  fact. 
The  area  of  ice  was  limited,  so  that  the  water  could  not  be  very 
far  from  the  base  of  our  eminence.  This  too  was  important. 
The  rolling  proved  us  to  be  detached  from  any  field.  Even 
though  it  should  be  impossible  to  descend  from  the  peak,  we 
might  be  able  to  reach  the  sea  with  a  grappling  line,  and  tele- 
gr;i})h  home  for  relii'f.  If  we  succeeded  in  doing  this,  the  only 
thing  that  then  remained  for  us  to  do,  would  be  to  keep  our  po- 
sition so  brightly  illuminated,  that  the  Relief  would  be  able  to 


BY  AND  BY.  11 

see  us  and  take  us  off ;  for  not  knowing  where  we  were,  we 
coukl  not  tell  tliem  where  to  look  for  us. 

"  These  things  passed  through  my  mind  as  I  stood  by  the 
entrance  to  the  cave.  Eeturning  within,  I  was  accosted  by 
Avenil,  who  said, 

"'I  have  been  making  some  calculations  in  my  head,  and 
am  very  much  inclined  to  think  we  must  be  on  the  top  of  a 
pretty  high  old  berg.  What  have  you  seen  ?  Is  the  fog  gone 
yet?' 

"  Telling  him  to  wrap  his  furs  closely  around  him  (we  all 
had  dresses  of  fur,  double  ones  with  fur  on  both  sides),  I  took 
him  outside  and  showed  him  our  position. 

" '  I  suppose,'  he  said,  '  that  these  things  take  to  rocking  and 
rolling  a  long  time  before  they  can  tumble  over,  so  that  we 
need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  that.' 

" '  Could  we  not,'  he  then  asked,  '  find  out  whether  it  is  ice 
or  water  down  below,  by  firing  some  shots  down  ? ' 

"  '  Certainly,'  I  said,   '  if  we  had  been  provided  with  a  gun.' 

"  '  I  have  my  piece  with  me,'  he  replied,  '  and  some  percus- 
sion bullets  left  from  the  stock  I  brought  out  with  me.' 

"  I  begged  him  to  get  them  out  at  once,  as  if  the  fog  came 
on  again  they  would  be  of  no  use. 

"  The  gun  Avas  soon  ready,  and  the  whole  party  came  and 
stood  on  the  ledge  to  watch  the  experiment. 

The  first  shot  was  directed  against  the  face  of  the  berg 
opposite  to  us,  in  order  that  we  might  learn  the  effect  of  the 
concussion  on  what  we  knew  to  be  solid  ice,  before  discharging 
one  into  the  unknown  void  below.  The  bullet  struck  and  ex- 
ploded, tearing  away  large  splinters  and  hurling  them  into  the 
air,  whence  they  fell  into  the  abyss.  "We  tlien  fired  several 
shots  downwards  at  various  angles,  some  to  a  distance  of  pro- 
bably two  or  three  hundred  yards  (for  it  was  but  a  pocket-piece, 
and  scarceh'  able  to  carry  further).  They  all  exploded,  as  if 
against  a  hard  substance,  making  a  noise  that  amid  those  icy 
silences  seemed  terrific.  We  then  bethought  us  of  lighting  up 
the  most  distant  points  the  gun  would  reach,  by  discharging 
some  small  fire-balls ;    and  I  returned  into  the  cave  to  prepare 


12  BY  AND  BY. 

tliom  from  a  combination  of  Avenil's  explosives,  and  some  of  the 
reflector's  magnesium.  They  answered  tlieir  purpose  admira- 
bly, but  proved  still  more  conclusively  that  no  open  water 
was  accessible  to  us,  and  therefore  no  room  for  drifting,  except 
with  a  vast  mass,  and  probably  therefore  no  telegraph  wire 
accessible,  or  means  of  connnunicating  with  home,  and  no  pros- 
pect of  relief. 

"The  experiments  which  forced  this  .melancholy  conclusion 
upon  me  being  over,  it  Avas  with  a  heavy  heart  that  I  led  the 
way  back  into  the  cave,  and  seated  myself  in  silence  beside  the 
pendulum. 

"  Avenil,  who  was  the  oldest  of  the  lads,  placed  himself 
beside  me,  and  after  a  short  silence,  remarked — 

" '  It  is  lucky  that  I  am  one  of  the  lightest,  as  w^ell  as  in 
other  ways  the  fittest,  of  the  party  for  the  job.  Don't  you  tliink, 
Bertie,  we  had  better  set  to  work  at  once  ? ' 

"'It  seems  the  only  hope,'  I  answered;  'but  I  cannot  bear 
the  thought  either  of  letting  one  go  alone  or  of  leaving  any 
behind,  and  in  such  a  place  as  this.' 

"  I  said  this  because  I  thought  that  he  meant  that  with 
but  one  or  two  persons  in  it,  the  aiiromotive  could  be  worked 
by  hand  power,  and  that  he  would  venture  forth  in  it  to  seek 
aid. 

" '  No,  no,  I  don't  mean  that,'  he  exclaimed,  when  I  had  ex- 
plained my  thought.  '  Why,  Bertie,  old  man,  the  idea  of  miss- 
ing your  Christmas  dinner  is  affecting  your  brain  !  Did  you 
not  notice  that  the  wind  has  set  in  strongly  from  the  south,  so 
that  there  would  be  no  chance  of  working  against  it  by  hand  ? 
I  meant  that  I  would  be  the  first  to  descend  the  berg  by  a 
rope  and  explore  the  lower  part  of  the  floe  more  closely :  and  if 
I  could  find  a  likely  spot,  commence  boring  or  blasting  a  hole 
to  let  our  grappling  hook  through.  I  suppose  we  have  line 
enough  to  scale  any  possible  berg  ?' 

"  I  reminded  him  that  the  plan  would  only  answer  upon  a 
thin  ice-field,  whereas  we  had  two-thirds  of  our  mass  below  the 
surface  of  the  water ;  but  he  said  tluit  there  might  be  thin  ice 
or  even  crevices  close  by,  and  that  at  any  rate  it  must  have  an 


BY  AND    BY.  13 

end  or  an  edge  somewhere,  and  that  whatever  the  risk  it  was 
necessary  for  some  one  to  run  it,  and  wlio  better  than  he  ? 

"  I  declared  tliat  if  anj'one  made  the  attempt  it  should  be 
myself,  and  that  I  would  set  about  it  to-morrow ;  but  he  ex- 
claimed— 

"■  To-morrow !  why,  dear  Bertie,  how  forgetful  you  have 
become — you  who  are  famous  for  always  thinking  of  everything, 
and  everybody,  except  yourself.  It  is  all  one  long  day,  or 
rather  night,  here.' 

"  '  The  thought  of  you  all,  and  of  your  parents,'  I  said,  '  will 
come  over  me  at  times, 'and  is  almost  more  than  I  can  bear. 
But  call  it  what  you  will,  day  or  night,  the  next  twelve  hours 
will  see  the  turn  of  the  sun.  Would  that  we  might  be  safe 
here  until  his  light  travels  so  far  north.  But  we  have  not  food 
for  so  long  a  time,  or  fuel  to  maintain  the  heat  for  converting 
the  ice  into  water  for  drinking,  even  if  the  berg  were  safe  from 
overturning.  But  what  are  the  lads  firing  again  for  ?  '  I  asked, 
for  I  thought  I  heard  a  fresh  discharge. 

"As  I  spoke,  young  Wilmer  rushed  into  the  cave,  crying  out 
that  our  shots  had  been  taken  for  signals,  and  were  being 
answered  from  a  balloon  or  something  that  seemed  to  be  coming 
towards  us. 

"  Scarcely  crediting  my  senses,  I  hastened  out,  and  was  just 
in  time  to  hear  another  discharge,  apparently  to  the  south,  and 
but  a  short  distance  off.  Gazing  intently  in  that  direction,  we 
presently  discovered  a  light  attached  to  what  appeared  to  be  a 
large  old-fashioned  balloon  coming  along  with  the  wind. 

"  '  More  victims,'  I  muttered  to  myself,  for  I  knew  that  a 
machine  of  that  build  could  never  control  its  course  in  anything 
stronger  than  a  light  wind.  Our  own  machine  was  on  the 
spiral  fan  system,  and,  with  sufficient  motive  power,  could  screw 
its  way  right  into  any  wind.  This  was  of  the  old  gaseous  type  ; 
and  though  it  was  not  unusual  for  travelers  to  take  a  short  cut 
over  the  Pole  from  one  hemisphere  to  the  other,  this  was  not 
the  vehicle  to  do  it  in. 

"Observing  that  the  stranger  was  keeping  a  direct  course  for 
us,  I  told  the  boys  to  get  out  the  gun  again,  and  a  fresh  supply 


14  liY  AND  BY, 

of  magnesium,  adding  that  we  would  let  the  strangers  see  as 
well  as  hear  us,  and  that  it  would  he  curious  indeed  if  we  were 
to  have  company  there. 

"  *  A  Christmas  party  !  a  Christmas  j^arty  on  an  iceberg  ! ' 
they  shouted. 

"  '  And  perhaps,'  added  Avenil,  '  they  will  be  able  to  take  us 
off.' 

"  ^Yhen  they  were  quiet,  I  said  to  them — 

"  '  My  boys,  that  balloon  is  in  distress.  She  is  either  steered 
by  a  novice,  or  by  one  too  weak  to  keep  her  steady.  I  wish  the 
wind  would  lull ;  she  will  sweep  past  us  to  a  certainty.  Cease 
firing,  and  keep  the  reflector  turned  on  her.  We  shall  be  able 
to  speak  her  presently.' 

''  It  was  a  moment  of  intense  anxiety  as  she  neared  us.  It 
was  clear  that  she  was  desirous  of  coming  to  anchor,  for  her 
grapples  were  all  out  hanging  far  below  her,  so  far  that  I  won- 
dered they  did  not  catch  in  the  water,  and  either  retard  her 
progress  or  di*ag  her  down.  As  it  was,  she  had  a  strange  jerky 
motion,  which  at  first  I  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for.  Studying 
her  carefully  through  my  glass,  I  discovered  the  cause.  She 
was  skimming  the  ice ;  and  the  jerks  were  caused  by  the 
grapples  catching  the  edges  of  the  hummocks  and  then  slipping 
off  and  catching  again.  She  was  on  a  lower  level  than  our- 
selves. 

"  I  had  scarcely  made  this  observation  when  we  all  cried — 

" ' Ah ! ' 

"  For  at  that  moment  she  made  a  sudden  leap  upward  as  if 
lightened  of  a  considerable  load,  and  indeed,  I  thought  I  saw  a 
large  package  or  something  drop  from  her.  A  few  moments 
more  and  she  rushed  upon  our  berg,  her  lines  striking  against 
the  walls  of  our  cavern,  and  she  herself  striking  against  the 
side  of  the  peak  far  above  us,  exactly  as  we  had  done,  only  with 
much  greater  violence,  and  from  another  direction. 

"  Without  pausing  a  moment  to  see  what  she  would  do  next, 
but  shouting  at  the  top  of  my  voice  to  encourage  the  inmates, — 
if  living  inmate  she  still  had,  for  I  had  begun  to  doubt  it,  so 
strange  had  been  all  her  ways  since  the  last  signal  had  been 


BY  AND  BY.        -  .  15 

discliarged, — I  and  the  lads  seized  hold  of  the  grappling  lines 
and  carried  them  into  the  cave,  Avhere  we  made  them  fast  by 
wedging  them  into  a  great  crevice  in  the  ice.  Fortunately  the 
arrest  of  the  balloon  against  the  berg  had  left  them  slack,  or 
they  would  have  been  torn  away  from  our  grasp.  Hastening 
out  again,  we  perceived  her  clinging  to  the  precipice  above  us, 
as  if  rubbing  herself  uneasily  against  its  sloping  front.  I  then 
hailed  her  in  several  different  languages  successively,  tlie  last 
time  being  in  Arabic,  for  the  make  of  the  grapples  made  me 
take  her  for  an  Oriental  of  some  kind.  This  time  I  was  re- 
warded by  hearing  a  faint  voice  speaking  in  the  same  tongue, 
and  querulously  complaining  of  something  or  other. 

"  So  we  set  to  work  to  haul  her  in  to  us.  She  came  more 
easily  than  we  expected,  for  she  had  lost  much  of  her  buoyancy 
with  the  blow  of  the  contact — a  contact  partly  caused,  as  on 
reflection  seemed  probable,  both  in  her  case  and  in  our  own,  by 
the  attraction  of  the  gigantic  iceberg." 


CHAPTEE  III. 

"  While  gently  drawing  the  stranger  towards  us,  I  did  my 
best  to  encourage  the  inmates  hy  addressing  to  them  kindly 
phrases  in  the  same  tongue  ;  and,  as  I  must  confess,  I  felt  a 
little  ruffled  at  not  getting  a  single  word  in  response.  At 
length  the  car,  which  was  elaborately  constructed  of  the  finest 
basket-work  and  silk,  was  safely  lodged  Avithin  our  crater,  its 
huge  floaters,  still  partially  distended  with  gas,  occupying  a 
great  portion  of  the  cavity.  Fortunately  the  wind  had  entirely 
lulled ;  but  to  prevent  it  from  embarrassing  us  should  it  rise 
again,  by  its  action  on  the  mass,  I  directed  the  lads  to  gather 
up  the  folds  as  the  gas  escaped,  and  packed  them  away  in  the 
recesses  of  the  cave.     I  then  clambered  up  into  the  car. 

"  It  was  an  immense  and  unwieldy  affair,  evidently  designed 
bj^  and  for  people  who  were  greater  adepts  in  luxury  than  in 
science.     What  perplexed  me  most  was  the  absolute  quietude 


16  .        J3r  ANU  BY. 

of  ull  within.  Opening  a  trap-door,  and  descending  a  flight  of 
steps,  I  found  myself  in  a  small  chamber,  where  by  the  light  of 
a  dim  lamp,  I  perceived  an  old  man  of  most  venerable  aspect, 
with  long  white  hair  and  beard,  evidently  an  oriental,  reclining 
on  a  di\'an,  and  apparently  more  dead  than  alive. 

"  Hearing  me  enter,  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  mingled  reproach 
and  entreaty,  but  without  glancing  toward  me — 

" '  Ziie,  why  so  long  absent  ?  Surely  the  car  needed  not 
guidance  so  much  as  I  needed  thee?' 

"  He  had  scarcely  finished  his  utterance  when  a  sharj:)  little 
cry  broke  from  an  adjoining  chamber,  which  caused  the  old  man 
to  start  and  turn  towards  me.  Whether  the  astonished  look  of 
his  glistening  eyes  was  caused  most  by  the  appearance  of  a 
stranger,  or  by  the  cry  he  had  just  heard,  I  could  not  tell,  but 
he  was  evidently  disturbed  at  both. 

"  '  Can  I  help  you  ?  '  I  enquired,  for  I  found  him  easily  intel- 
ligible. We  aerialists,  you  must  know,  are  obliged  to  be  con- 
versant with  the  tongues  of  all  civilised  people. 

"  '  Zoe  ought  to  have  annovmced  you,'  he  said,  with  a  gesture 
of  courtesy.  '  I  presume  that  you  have  come  on  board  us  from 
some  balloon  that  we  have  met.  I  fear  I  am  too  ill  to  converse 
with  you.  Zoe  Avill  speak  for  me.  Methought  I  heard  an 
infant's  voice.  You  are  a  foreigner.  Do  foreigners  carry  young 
children  on  such  voyages  ?  ' 

"  'I  think  you  are  in  some  error,'  I  returned,  '  as  to  the  pre- 
cise position  of  your  balloon.  It  is  because  I  saw  you  were  in 
som'e  difficulty  that  I  have  come  on  board.  Could  I  find  her 
you  named,  or  any  other  of  the  jjassengers,  I  would  not  intrude 
upon  you.' 

"^  'Not  find  Zoe  ! '  he  exclaimed.  '  She  was  here  just  now,  and 
only  left  me  to  look  after  the  machinery  and  lights.  That  is 
always  her  part  in  our  air-trips.  Since  we  left  Damascus  she 
has  not  been  so  long  absent  from  me.' 

"  His  utter  ignorance  of  what  had  happened  to  his  balloon 
led  me  to  surmise  that  his  companion  had  met  with  some  acci- 
dent— probably  fallen  out  immediately  after  discharging  the 
signals  which  had  attracted  our  attention. 


BY  AND  BY.  17 

"At  that  moment  the  cry  was  renewed.  Unhooking  tlie 
lamp  from  its  chain,  I  went  into  the  adjoining  compartment, 
where  I  found  an  infant  in  a  hastily-improvised  cot. 

"At  the  sight  of  the  light,  the  cry  ceased,  and  I  took  the 
child,  cot  and  all,  and  set  them  down  heside  the  old  man. 

" '  I  suppose  this  is  her  child  of  whom  you  were  speaking,'  I 
said.     'It  is,  indeed,  young  to — ' 

"  '  Man  ! '  he  cried,  almost  raising  himself  from  his  couch. 
'Her  child  !  what  mean  you  ?  ' 

"  I  refrained  from  speaking,  and  he  gazed  on  it  awhile  wuth 
a  wondering  and  troubled  mien,  muttering  to  himseK  words 
which  I  could  not  catch.     Presently  he  said  again, — 
"'Where  can  Zoe  be  ?  ' 

"  It  was  clear  that  there  w^as  no  alternative  but  to  tell  him 
all,  so  far  as  I  knew  it,  respecting  his  situation.  When  I  had 
concluded,  and  made  him  comprehend  that  his  companion  must 
have  been  precipitated  to  the  earth  and  lost,  and  that  the  sole 
inmates  of  the  balloon  were  himseK  and  a  new-born  infant,  and 
that  he  had  come  down  on  an  ice-field  in  the  Arctic  seas,  and 
also  that  though  we  would  do  all  in  our  power  to  aid  him,  we 
almost  despaired  of  our  own  extrication,  and,  indeed,  had  hailed 
his  approach  as  that  of  a  possible  deliverer  to  ourselves, — he 
said,  in  a  tone  of  devout  resignation, — 

"  'I  understand  it  all  now.  It  was  willed.  Save  her  child, 
if  it  be  possible.  You  will  find  that  here  which  will  repay 
you.     For  me,  I  die.' 

"  And  covering  his  face,  he  murmured, — 
"  'How  she  must  have  suffered  through  my  blindness.     Suf- 
fered in  silence  and  alone.     Would  that  her  mother  had  lived. 
Zoe,  my  two  Zoes,  I  come.     Receive  and  forgive  ! ' 

"  Thinking  it  best  to  leave  him  awhile  to  his  grief,  I  quitted 
the  car  and  returned  to  my  party,  who  were  in  no  little  curiosity 
about  our  visitant.  They  had  completed  their  work  of  expelling 
the  gas,  and  were  folding  up  the  bulky  fabric  as  I  had  directed 
them.  I  now  stopped  this,  and  said  we  would  spread  it  partly 
overhead  as  a  ceiling,  and  partly  under  foot  as  a  carpet,  in  order 
to  shelter  the  new  comers  who  were  unable  to  help  themselves. 
2 


18  BY  AND  BY. 

"'Wli}'-,  who  and  wliat  are  they?'  they  inquired,  all  speak- 
ing at  once. 

"  '  In  the  first  place,'  I  told  them,  '  there  is  an  old  man,  a  very 
venerable  old  man,  with  snow}-  hair  and  dark  piercing  eyes, 
who  has  lately  left  Damascus,  and  says  he  is  going  to  die.  In 
tlie  second  place,  there  was  a  young  woman,  his  daughter,  who 
took  care  of  him,  but  has  now  disappeared.' 
"'Quite  lately?'  asked  Avenil. 

" '  So  lately  that  he  did  not  know  of  it,  and  was  expecting  to 
see  her  when  I  entered.' 

" '  Depend  upon  it,  it  was  her  falling  out  that  made  the  bal- 
loon rise  so  suddenly,  while  we  were  watching  it,'  he  said. 

"I  agreed  that  this  seemed  probable,  and  added,  'In  the 
third  place,  there  is  a  baby ;  which,  seeing  that  the  old  man 
knew  nothing  about  it  until  I  discovered  it,  must  have  been  in- 
troduced by  the  young  woman  very  shortly  before  her  dis- 
appearance.' 

" '  The  poor  little  thing  won't  survive  her  long  in  these 
regions,'  said  one. 

"'And  who  else  is  there?  and  why  don't  they  show  them- 
selves ? '  asked  another. 

"  I  told  them  there  was  no  one  else ;  and  that  of  these  two 
the  old  man  had  made  up  his  mind  to  die,  and  committed  the 
infant  to  my  charge,  for  his  mind  was  as  broken  with  grief  as 
his  body  with  age. 

'"And  the  balloon  is  of  no  use  to  carry  us  away  from  this 
place,'  said  one,  in  a  tone  of  disappointment. 

"I  said  probably  not,  but  that  at  any  rate  we  might  find 
some  supplies  which  we  could  turn  to  account.  And  then 
selecting  young  Wilmer, — your  father,  Lawrence, — as  the  gen- 
tlest and  most  tender  of  the  lads,  I  re-entered  the  chamber. 
The  old  man  was  still  alive,  but  moaning  feebly ;  and  the  child 
was  so  fast  asleep,  that  I  thought  its  mother  must  have  given 
it  a  cordial  before  leaving  it,  a  surmise  which  was  afterwards 
confirmed  by  my  finding  a  vial  beneath  the  head  of  the  couch. 
"  I  knew  little  of  medicine,  and  nothing  of  the  management 
of  children,  but  having  a  vague  idea  that  the  principal  agencies 


BY  AND    BY.  19 

in  sustaining  their  vitality  are  air,  food,  sleep,  and  warmth,  I 
directed  young  Wilmer  to  open  some  cases  which  were  in  the 
chamber,  ijnd  see  if  they  contained  any  nutriment  likely  to  be 
suitable  for  the  child,  while  I  endeavored  to  rouse  the  old  man 
to  action  of  some  kind.  The  chamber  which  had  evidently 
been  constructed  with  a  view  to  a  warmer  climate  than  that  of 
the  Arctic  regions,  was  rapidly  losing  the  heat  I  had  found  op- 
pressive on  my  first  visit,  a  heat  supplied  by  the  machinery  of 
the  balloon,  and  therefore  no  longer  sustained  now  that  the  ma- 
chinery was  at  rest.  Its  atmosphere,  however,  was  far  from  pure 
and  wholesome.  So  I  begged  the  old  man  to  let  me  remove 
him  and  the  child  to  our  own  more  roomy  abode.  But  all  my 
efforts  were  unheeded.  He  refused  to  move  or  to  be  consoled, 
and  by  turns  murmured  the  names  of  Zoe  and  Solomon,  and 
something  about  a  talisman,  whose'  aid  he  seemed  to  be  invoking 
for  the  child. 

"  In  the  meantime,  young  Wilmer  had  been  to  work  to  good 
purpose.  He  had  found  a  case  containing  a  preparation  of 
milk,  solidified  into  small  bars.  After  tasting  these,  I  determined 
to  administer  them  to  the  infant.  Not  to  make  this  part  of  my 
story  too  long,  I  will  state  at  once  that  the  old  man  died  a  few 
hours  after  his  descent,  having  uttered  nothing  that  could  give 
us  a  clue  to  his  name  ;  and,  indeed,  only  once  speaking  coher-. 
ently,  on  which  occasion  he  asked  the  month  and  day  of  the  year, 
and  said  something  which  I  took  for  an  adjuration  addressed  to 
the  sun. 

"  The  child  became  our  first  care,  and  we  seemed  tacitly  to 
regard  it  as  a  point  of  honor  to  save  ourselves  in  order  to  save 
it,  and  rear  it  to  manhood.  I  say  manhood,  for  it  proved  to  be 
a  boy.  This  important  discovery  was  made  on  the  occasion  of 
the  question  being  started  as  to  what  we  should  call  it.  We 
were  sitting,  soon  after  its  arrival,  around  our  camp  illuminator 
and  warmer,  which  was  no  other  than  our  electro-magnesian 
reflector  already  mentioned,  and  which  was  so  constructed  as  to 
be  readily  convertible  into  a  small  and  luminous  stove  ;  young 
Wilmer,  in  his  function  of  nurse,  held  the  infant  on  his  knees, 
and  it  was  gazing,  with  eyes  wide  open,  at  the  light.     It  never 


20  BY  AND  BY. 

cried,  wluch  was  a  great  comfort  to  us  male  creatures,  for  we 
sliould  Lave  been  tt-rribly  puzzled  wliat  to  do  if  it  had ;  and  it 
had  taken  very  kindly  to  the  food  we  liad  given  it.  Well,  we 
were  sitting  thus  when  some  one  suggested  that  we  ought  to 
call  it  Zoe. 

'' '  Ziie,  indeed ! '  exclaimed  nurse  Wilmer,  indignantly  ;  '  why, 
it's  a  hoy  ! ' 

"  The  observation  showed  how  judicious  had  been  my  choice 
of  liim  for  nurse.  The  possibility  of  such  a  thing  had  not  oc- 
curred to  anyone  else.  We  could  not  resist  having  a  good  laugh 
over  our  dullness,  and,  to  our  surprise,  the  child,  as  if  because  it 
then  heard  human  voices  for  the  first  time,  actually  joined  in 
the  laugh  by  making  a  sort  of  crowing  noise. 

"'Is  there  a  name  on  the  balloon,  that  will  do? '  asked  one 
of  the  lads.  But  the  balloon  bore  no  name.  Another  suggested 
something  implying  ice  or  air;  and  it  was  even  proposed  to  call 
it  Ariel,  and  give  it  one  of  my  names  for  surname.  Ariel  Ber- 
tie, we  thought,  sounded  well,  and  I  was  strongly  inclined  to 
adopt  this  suggestion  ;  the  more  as  I  had  fully  made  up  my 
mind  to  adopt  the  child  as  my  own,  should  I  ever  succeed  in 
escaping  from  that  place,  and  reaching  home  witli  it  in  safety. 
The  similarity  of  the  name,  I  considered,  would  make  it  appear 
to  strangers  as  if  it  were  really  a  blood  relation.  The  child 
itself,  too,  seemed  by  its  crowing  to  approve,  at  least,  of  having 
some  distinctive  name. 

"  However,  j^oung  Wilmer,  looking  up  from  it,  said  that  he 
had  read  in  an  old  story-book,  of  a  wild  Indian,  who,  being  on 
a  desolate  island,  was  rescued  from  death  by  a  white  man,  and 
in  gratitude  devoted  himself  to  the  white  man's  service,  and 
was  called  after  the  day  of  the  week  on  which  he  had  been 
saved, — Friday. 

" '  And  as  this  is  the  last  day  of  the  winter  solstice,  and  we 
may  regard  him  as  a  little  ray  from  heaven  to  lighten  our 
gloom,  let  one  of  his  names  be  Christmas  ! ' 

"  So  with  vehement  rapidity  exclaimed  j^oung  Avenil ;  and, 
as  if  in  approbation  of  the  proposal,  the  infant  chirped  and 
crowed  with  redoubled  energy. 


BY  AND  BY.  21 

'''Listen!  it  is  singing  a  carol,'  cried  nurse  Wilmer.  'A 
Christmas  Carol — liear  its  caroling  ? ' 

"  '  Then  call  it  one,'  said  Avenil. 

"  '  One  what  ? '  I  asked. 

'"  Christmas  Carol.     It's  a  charming  name.' 

" '  And  we  will  call  it  Chrissy,  for  short,"  said  the  boy-nurse, 
bending  down  and  kissing  the  child,  and  then  handing  it  round 
for  each  one  of  us  to  kiss  as  we  repeated  the  name,  Christmas 
Carol. 

"We  all  agreed  it  was  a  charming  name,  and  wonderfully 
appropriate,  from  whatever  point  of  view  we  regarded  it.  For 
it  had  come  at  the  very  birth  of  the  year,  when  the  days  first 
begin  to  wax  after  the  winter  solstice,  and  in  the  moment  of 
our  deepest  despair ;  and  we  spoke  of  the  old  man  just  dead, 
its  grandfather,  as  the  old  year,  and  of  its  mother  Zoe,  as  the 
life  that  went  out  in  giving  it  life.  And  as  we  looked  on  the 
infant  that  had  so  wondrously  descended  among  us,  and  re- 
peated the  name  whereby  it  was  to  be  known  among  men,  we 
forgot  the  peril  we  were  still  in,  and  warmed  towards  the  most 
ancient  of  sciences.  Astronomy,  and  the  poetry  of  its  kindred 
Mythology,  and  were,  I  believe,  at  that  moment,  about  the 
happiest  party  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  A  DEEP,  broad  crevice  ran  across  one  corner  of  the  floor  of 
our  cavern.  In  this  we  deposited  the  body  of  the  old  man, 
filling  it  up  above  him  with  broken  bits  of  ice,  which  when 
driven  in  with  blows  became  welded  together,  forming  a  sarco- 
phagus of  clear  crystal,  warranted  not  only  not  to  consume  the 
body,  but  to  preserve  it  from  decay,  until  the  berg  itself  should 
finally  bow  its  head  and  sink  and  melt  in  the  sea. 

"  The  next  task  was  to  investigate  the  nature  and  contents 
of  the  balloon..  Young  Avenil  set  himself  to  make  an  exami- 
nation of   the  machinery.     The   other   lads    rifled    the   stores, 


22  BT  AND  BY. 

and  I  sought  for  some  document  by  which  we  might  learn  the 
history  of  the  late  occupants. 

"It  was  little  substantial  help  that  I  expected  to  get  from 
any  discoveries  we  might  make.  It  was  unlikely  that  the  stock 
of  provisions  would  go  far  towards  keeping  us  alive  for  the 
five  or  six  weeks  still  remaining  of  utter  darkness,  during 
wliich  it  would  be  hopeless  to  attempt  to  leave  the  berg.  Fitted, 
as  the  machine  probably  was,  to  be  a  mere  pleasure-conveyance 
of  a  wealthy  and  luxurious  Damascene  family,  it  was  not  likely 
to  contain  more  than  was  sufficient  for  a  short  trip.  'But  what 
we  found  led  us  to  a  different  conclusion.  Kot  only  was  it  over- 
laden with  provisions  and  luxuries  sufficient  to  sustain  in  com- 
fort a  number  of  persons  for  several  weeks,  but  it  contained 
jewels  and  money  to  a  great  value.  So  that,  altogether,  we 
were  led  to  conclude  that  the  old  man  and  his  daughter  were, 
probably  in  consequence  of  some  unpleasantness  connected  with 
the  hitter's  situation,  in  the  act  of  emigrating  with  all  their 
property  in  search  of  a  new  home,  when  by  reason  of  illness, 
or  storms,  they  were  driven  out  of  their  course,  and  carried  by 
the  currents  of  the  atmosphere  to  the  Arctic  Seas. 

"  The  discoveries  I  had  made  intensified  the  interest  I  already 
felt  in  the  child.  It  was  evidently  the  heir  to  people  of  consid- 
eration and  wealth,  that  would  enable  it  to  take  up  any  position 
in  the  world  for  which  it  might  by  character  and  abilities  be 
httcd. 

*'  So  occupied  was  I  with  these  reflections,  that  I  had  not 
given  my  mind  to  what  was  really  of  far  more  importance  to 
us  just  then,  than  anything  else  in  the  world  ;  namely,  the  pos- 
sibility of  turning  the  balloon  to  account  in  contriving  our 
escape.  There  was  clearly  no  other  Avay,  for  the  berg  had  evi- 
dently reunited  with  the  masses  of  ice  around  it,  as  was  shown 
by  its  perfect  immobility  ;  and  a  journey  over  the  ice-field 
would  be  attended  by  liurdships  that  must  be  fatal  to  at  least 
one  nicnibiT  (if  the  i»;irty.  Since  the  stars  had  become  visible, 
there  had  been  no  ditticulty  in  ascertaining  our  latitude.  It 
was  a  degree  or  two  above  that  of  Spitzbergen :  that  is,  the 
polar  distance   of  our  berg  was  about  eight   degrees.     About 


JBT  AND  BY.  23 

our  longitude  we  were  necessarily  still  in  the  dark ;  and  our 
only  hope  of  finding  it  lay  in  our  hooking  the  telegraph.  This, 
however,  was  practically  of  no  consequence,  as  the  very  size  of 
our  berg  showed  that  we  must  be  too  far  from  any  coast  for  us 
to  attempt  to  roach  it  over  the  ice.  By  knowing  the  latitude 
we  were  enabled  to  determine  the  period  remaining  of  total 
darkness.  And  this,  as  I  have  mentioned,  had  still  five  or  six 
weeks  to  run. 

"  I  was  talking  over  these  matters  with  the  lads,  as  we  sat 
round  our  little  stove,  the  child  as  usual  lying  on  young  Wil- 
mer's  lap,  and  flourishing  marvellously,  when  Avenil  abruptly 
asked  me  who  was  the  maker  of  the  broken  cylinder  of  our  aero- 
motive,  and  whether  the  size  and  number  were  stamped  upon 
it. 

*•'  Thinking  he  was  indulging  in  visions  of  a  claim  for  dam- 
ages against  the  manufacturer  on  our  return  home,  I  twitted 
him  on  the  score  of  his  reflections  taking  a  more  sordid  and  less 
I^ractical  turn  than  usual. 

"He  had  then  the  same  imperturbable  good  temper  that  dis- 
tinguishes him  in  his  present  exalted  position,  and  he  made  no 
reply  to  my  taunt.  But  after  the  rest  of  the  party  had  turned 
in  and  were  asleep,  he  beckoned  to  me  to  take  the  lamp  and 
come  outside  our  place  of  shelter.  When  I  got  there,  he 
said — 

'''Wbat  I  want  to  know  is  this: — can  the-fans  be  worked 
with  a  less  powerful  decomposer  than  the  one  we  have 
broken  ? ' 

"I  said,  certainly;  the  only  difference  would  be  in  our 
speed;  but  that  I  did  not  care  about  that,  for,  provided  we  had 
power  enough  to  carry  us  aloft,  and  sustain  us  there,  the  winds 
would  be  sure  sooner  or  later  to  carry  us  to  some  eligible  place 
for  descending.  At  any  rate  we  could  hardly  be  in  a  worse 
one. 

*• '  Well,' he  said,  'now  will  j-ou  answer  my  question  about 
the  broken  cylinder  ? ' 

"I  mentioned  the  maker's  name,  and  the  nuuibcr  of  the 
piece. 


24  BY  AND  BY. 

"  '  Xow  look  at  tliis,'  lie  said,  '  and  tell  me  what  you  think  of 
it.'  And  he  led  me  to  the  machinery  of  the  strange  balloon, 
which  he  had  been  taking  to  pieces,  and  nncovering  the  cylin- 
der, which  he  had  concealed,  bade  me  look  at  it. 

"  I  did  look  at  it,  and  then  at  the  machinery  of  which   it 
formed  a  part,  and  then  at  the  boy.     And  tbeu  I  said — 
"  '  ])o  any  of  the  others  know  of  this  ? ' 

" '  Of  coui-sc  not,'  he  answered.  '  I  was  not  going  to  raise 
hopes  only  to  have  them  disappointed.  But  what  do  you  think 
of  it?' 

" '  Think  of  it  ?  Why  that  this  cylinder,  though  less  pow- 
erful than  our  own,  is  by  the  same  maker,  and  of  precisely  the 
same  kind,  and  that  it  will  take  us  up  off  the  ice,  and  if  we 
haA'e  moderate  weather,  enable  us  to  steer  homewards.'  And  I 
grasped  his  hand  in  joyous  revulsion  of  feeling  at  the  imme- 
diate prospect  of  escape  for  my  lads. 

"  It  is  true  that  I  ought  sooner  to  have  seen  this  possibility, 
as  all  the  machinery  used  in  the  East  is  of  British  manufac- 
ture. But  the  events  connected  with  the  arrival  of  the  balloon 
had  occupied  nearly  all  my  thoughts.  Besides,  the  acquisition 
of  such  an  addition  to  our  stock  of  provisions  had  removed  from 
my  mind  all  apprehension  for  the  present. 

"  I  will  not  detail  the  experiments  which  occupied  the  next 
two  or  three  days.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  after  several  trials  we 
succeeded  in  fitting  the  new  combination  of  machinery  eo  as  to 
give  sufficient  power  for  our  purpose.  The  moment  of  our 
quitting  the  iceberg  was  one  of  intense  emotion  ;  the  thought 
of  our  various  homes  and  the  feelings  we  knew  would  be  work- 
ing there,  had  our  position  been  known,  dominating  all  others. 
"  Next  to  this,  the  strongest  feeling  I  verily  belicA'e  was  that 
of  eagerness  to  save  the  child  whose  advent  had  so  strangely 
ministered  to  our  salvation,  and  of  curiosity  to  see  whether  its 
subsequent  career  would  correspond  with  its  commencement. 

"  The  important  question,  in  which  direction  we  should 
steer,  was  soon  decided  in  favor  of  home,  though  it  was  by 
much  the  longest  journey.  It  is  true  we  might  easily  have  re- 
gained the  Pole,  which  was  but  some  eight  degrees  distant,  and 


BY  AND    BY.  25 

tliere  we  should  have  found  a  fresh  vessel  to  take  us  home.  But 
the  lads  all  shrank  from  a  return  to  its  gloomy  though  hospit- 
able shores,  and  cried  out  for  the  sun,  and  the  light,  and  home  ; 
and  the  little  Criss  caroled  so  cheerily  at  the  sound  of  their  ac- 
clamations, that  I  determined  to  undertake  the  longer  voyage 
without  more  ado. 

"  So  we  departed,  rising  slowly  and  steadily  from  off  the 
cratered  pinnacle  of  ice  which  had  been  our  home  for  so  many 
days ;  leaving  on  it  a  biirning  beacon,  which  remained  in  sight 
long  after  we  had  started.  The  air  was  perfectly  calm  ;  and 
so,  slowly  and  without  mishap,  and  glad  not  to  rise  very  high, 
for  fear  of  the  effect  of  a  rare  atmosphere  upon  the  child's 
tender  lungs,  we  steered  for  the  invisible  sun,  remaining  igno- 
rant of  our  longitude  until  we  had  got  well  within  the  daylight. 

When  next  we  came  near  enough  the  earth  to  discern  the 
character  of  the  things  upon  it,  we  were  pleased  to  find  that  we 
were  coming  among  friends.  For  I  espied  the  familiar  outlines 
of  one  of  those  stereotyped  stations  for  aerial  and  railway  loco- 
motion, with  which  our  Government  has  provided  the  whole  of 
its  Asiatic  protectorate.  And  by  the  signal  hoisted  on  it  for 
the  information  of  aerial  travellers,  we  learnt  that  it  was  one  of 
the  north-eastern-most  stations  of  British  China. 

"  It  soon  appeared  that  we  bore  a  more  dilapidated  aspect 
than  we  were  aware  of ;  for  a  large  number  of  spectators 
assembled  to  witness  our  descent  in  the  enclosure  appointed  for 
the  purpose.  At  first  they  were  disposed  to  make  merry  at  our 
appearance ;  but  when  they  beheld  the  gravity  which  we  all 
steadfastly  maintained  as  we  stepped  one  by  one  out  of  the  car, 
now  properly  secured  by  the  station  ofiicials ;  and  when  finally 
young  Wilmer  came  forth  bearing  the  infant,  laughing  and 
crowing  in  his  arms,  and  we  proceeded  to  the  Station  Hotel, 
the  curiosity,  especially  of  the  Chinese  portion  of  the  crowd, 
knew  no  bounds.  They  would  have  it  that  one  of  us  was  a 
woman  in  disguise  ;  and  then,  that  we  must  have  abducted  the 
child.  Hearing  murmurs  to  this  effect,  and  not  desiring  to 
excite  the  hostility  of  the  natives,  I  asked  one  of  the  officials  in 
their  hearing,  if  there  was  a  place  of  worship  at  hand,  where  a 


26  BT  AND  BY. 

thanksgiving  service  for  escape  from  great  peril  could  be  per- 
formed ;  and  learning  that  a  Buddliist  temple  was  near,  I  sent 
a  liberal  fee,  to  secure  the  services  of  the  priest.  I  took  care  to 
say  all  this  aloud,  in  the  language  of  the  country,  for  former 
experiences  had  taught  me  that  the  nearest  way  to  the  hearts 
of  a  barbarian  people  is  by  paying  respect  to  their  religion. 
And  I  knew  from  history  that  nothing  had  contributed  more  to 
induce  the  Chinese  to  entrust  the  political  management  of  their 
empire  to  us  on  our  retiring  from  India,  when  we  had  taught 
its  people  to  govern  themselves,  and  hold  their  own  against  the 
Russians ;  or  to  dispose  them  favorably  towards  our  beliefs, 
than  the  conviction  that  we  should  pay  the  same  respect  to 
their  religion  and  customs  that  we  showed  to  those  of  each 
other  in  our  own  country,  as  well  as  to  those  of  the  Hindoos. 
"  I  also  sent  for  a  native  newspaper  reporter." 


CHAPTER  V. 

"We  were  fortunate  in  finding  a  nurse  for  the  infant  in  a 
yoimg  English  widow  of  gentle  nurture,  Avho  had  just  lost  her 
own  child,  and  was  desirous  of  returning  to  England,  her 
wedded  relation  having  come  to  an  end." 

[Here  the  old  man's  voice  faltered,  and  became  broken.  The 
cause  of  his  emotion  was  known  to  few  beside  myself ;  but  he 
succeeeded  in  mastering  it,  and  presently  went  on.] 

"  We  did  not  escape  the  usual  penalty  of  novelty  while  we 
remained  in  the  Mongol  town.  It  was  on  the  western  borders 
of  the  sea  of  Japan  that  we  alighted.  We  Avere  duly  inter- 
viewed by  the  caterers  for  the  public  press,  especially  those  of 
the  native  religious  papers  whicli  my  act  of  piety  had  concili- 
ated. Some  of  these  were  illustrated,  and  marvellous  were  the 
sketches  they  produced  of  our  encampment  on  the  ice-peak ; 
for  they  had  depicted  faces  of  buried  dead  peering  with  open 
eyes  through  the  lid  of  their  crystal  coffin,  from  the  walls  and 


BY  AND  BY.  27 

floor  of  our  crater;  while  watching  over  us  was  seen  the 
shadowy  form  of  their  principal  divinity, — the  one  to  whom 
the  temple  I  had  patronized  was  specially  dedicated.  All 
these  and  other  paintings  were  done  in  the  same  style  of 
Chinese  art  that  prevailed  thousands  of  years  ago ;  for  they 
are  the  most  conservative  people  in  the  world.  I  am  jnclined 
to  helieve  that,  like  the  horse,  the  bee,  and  nrany  other 
highly-organized  animals,  the  Chinese  have  long  ago  reached 
the  utmost  perfection  of  which  their  particular  species  is 
capable ;  so  that  they  do  not,  like  us,  keep  developing  into  new 
varieties.  The  period  during  which  a  race  retains  the  faculty 
of  changing  for  the  better,  which  with  us  constitutes  the  secret 
of  civilization,  has  long  since  been  passed  by  them,  and  their 
sole  care  is  to  continue  to  exist  without  palpable  deterioration. 
They  are  the  bees  of  humanity,  very  ingenious  and  industrious, 
but  they  do  not  get  on  any  further.  They  live  only  to  repeat 
what  has  been  done  before  over  and  over  again.  Their  organ- 
ization has  quenched  individuality. 

"  It  is  possible,  however,  that  such  stereotyping  of  character 
is  but  a  resultant  from  the  stereotyping  of  conditions.  Now 
the  Japanese,  who  were  long  ago  called  the  Englishmen  of 
the  East,  form  a  wonderful  contrast  to  their  neighbors  across 
the  strait.  But  for  us,  China,  and  its  splendid  coal-fields, 
would  long  ago  have  been  theirs. 

"  But  I  see  one  of  my  young  friends  opposite  yawning.  I 
am  obliged  to  him  for  doing  so.  It  was  a  needed  reminder  that 
mere  reflections  are  apt  to  be  tedious,  especially  when  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  subject  in  hand.  And  I  under- 
took to  relate  facts,  not '  reflections.  In  my  excuse,  let  me  tell 
you  that  the  life  I  have  led  so  much  up  in  the  air,  and  so 
much  alone,  without  a  sight  or  a  sound  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion, and  guided  only  by  the  needle,  without  reference  to  aught 
without, — like  a  soul  by  its  internal  ideal, — is  very  apt  to  make 
a  man  reflective.  He  comes  to  regard  himself  as  a  bystander 
to  the  world,  and  to  think  and  talk  about  it  as  if  he  were  not  a 
part  of  it. 

"  We  brought  ourselves  and  the  infant  all  safe  to  Europe  and 


28  BY  AND  BY. 

England  by  the  Great  Eastern  Railway,  the  new  nurse  being 
timid  about  the  air- voyage,  and  the  physicians  whom  I  con- 
sulted saying  that  her  fears,  if  excited  by  being  forced  to 
undertake  it,  might  have  an  injurious  effect  upon  the  child.  I 
almost  regretted  nurse  Wilmer  when  I  heard  this,  so  much  did 
I  prefer  my  own  mode  of  travelling.  But  I  gave  in  for  the 
child's  sake,  and  amply  was  I  repaid  for  so  doing.  There  are 
angels  in  the  real,  as  well  as  in  the  ideal  world." 

And  Bertie's  voice  trembled  again  as  he  closed  his  manu- 
script. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 

The  work  of  which  the  foregoing  narrative  is  to  serve  as 
commencement,  will  in  reality  be  a  joint  production,  to  the 
greater  portion  of  which  I  shall  enact  the  part  of  editor  rather 
than  of  author  ;  for  it  is  derived  from  the  reminiscences  of  the 
loving  hearts  of  those  who  knew  him  best,  and  who,  during 
its  progress  have  been  continuously  associated  with  me  in  our 
common  home. 

This  home  is  no  other  than  the  well-known  "  Club  "  (as  our 
ancestors  taught  us  to  name  such  institutions),  already  referred 
to  under  the  name  of  The  Triangle.  As  I  hope  our  story  will 
be  read  in  regions  whither  the  fame  of  The  Triangle  has  not 
yet  travelled,  I  will  here  mention  that  it  is  the  oldest,  and  as 
its  members  fondly  believe,  the  most  highly  considered,  of  the 
institutions  which  have,  more  than  any  others,  served  to  amelio- 
rate the  social  life  of  modern  times.  It  has  been  the  model- 
for  the  numberless  similar  clubs  which  have  now  long  existed 
among  all  kinds  and  classes  of  civilized  people,  and  in  their 
perfection  of  economy  and  organization,  brought  facilities  for 
comfort,  fellowship,  and  culture  otherwise  unattainable,  within 
easy  reach  of  every  rank  and  grade  of  life,  without  detriment 
to  domesticity  or  individuality.     And  here  I  may  remark  that 


BY  AND  BY.  29 

in  no  respect  does  our  idea  of  perfection  in  organization  differ 
from  that  of  antiquity  more  than  in  this, — tliat  while  formerly 
its  highest  triumpli  was  to  repress,  so  now  its  sole,  or  at  least 
main,  aim,  is  to  develop  individuality.  Other  clubs  have  such 
names  as  The  Right-angled  Triangle,  The  Ohtuse-angled  Trian- 
gle, or  The  Acute-angled  Triangle,  and  are  called  for  short,  The 
Right,  The  Obtuse,  or  The  Acute.  There  is  also  the  Isosceles, 
and  the  TJqidlateral.     Ours  alone  is  known  as  The  Triangle. 

The  determining  idea  of  all  these  institutions  is  derived  from 
the  fundamental  plan  of  human  life.  They  consist,  therefore, 
of  three  departments,  each  distinct  and  complete  in  itself,  yet 
all  inseparably  united  to  form  an  harmonious  whole.  One  angle 
of  the  building  is  devoted  to  men,  another  to  women,  and  the 
third  to  both  in  common,  with  their  families. 
'  Formerly  it  was  only  in  this  last  section  of  the  building  that 
the  inhabitants  of  the  various  divisions  could  meet  together, 
except  by  calling  upon  each  other  privately  by  an  external 
entrance.  Now,  each  division  has  its  own  hall  private  to  itself, 
the  common  one  for  all  having  recently  been  constructed.  In 
the  opinion  of  the  members  of  The  Triangle,  the  propinquity 
of  the  family  folks  is  as  desirable  as  that  of  others.  We  are, 
therefore,  emphatically  an  Equilateral  Triangle,  and  dispense 
altogether  with  diagonals  or  bi-sections ;  for  these  involve  an 
expedient  which  we  hold  to  be  subversive  of  the  essential  sig- 
nificance of  the  club  principle.  The  example  of  the  Square, 
Rectangular,  or  Parallelogrammatical  Clubs,  which  have  been 
started  as  an  imj)rovement  upon  the  Triangular  ones,  and 
which  provide  a  fourth  and  separate  division  for  the  exclusive 
use  of  couples  ungifted  with  offspring,  has  never  obtained  fa- 
vor at  The  Triangle. 

It  is  by  the  frank  adoption  of  the  Triangular  principle  that 
modern  society  has  reconciled  the  long  conflicting  ideas  of  the 
Home  and  the  Commune.  Co-existing  harmoniously  beneath 
the  same  roof,  the  former  is  free  from  invasion  or  dictation 
from  without,  while  the  latter  involves  no  deprivation  of  domes- 
ticity or  individuality.  Convenience,  not  interference,  is  their 
motto.      We  thus  vindicate  our  claim  to  be  the  most  perfect 


30  -BF  AND  BY. 

exponents  of  the  most  perfect  civilization  yet  attained, — the 
civilization  which,  while  affording  complete  security,  ministers 
also  to  the  promotion  of  individuality  and  the  development  of 
the  affections. 

It  was  this  that  endeared  the  Triangle  to  the  groat  and 
loving  heart  of  him  whose  loss  we  are  now  so  sorely  lamenting. 
A  multiplication  of  distinctions  beyond  those  hroadly  indicated 
hy  life  itself,  he  regarded  as  a  departure  from  tlie  hasis  of 
Nature,  and  a  return  to  the  system  which  proved  so  disastrous 
to  our  ancestors. 

These,  as  the  lessons  of  our  childhood  inform  us,  used  to 
imagine  that  they  had  detected  imperfections  in  the  structure 
of  the  universe,  and  particularly  of  the  moral  Avorld;  and  in 
the  plenitude  of  their  presumption  set  themselves  to  improve 
upon  natural  order  by  artificial  expedients  contrived  without 
reference  to  the  principles  of  that  order.  Their  sentiment  of 
humanity  was  undermined  by  their  sentiment  of  patriotism ; 
and  their  sentiment  of  patriotism  was  undermined  by  the  yet 
more  sub-divisional  character  of  their  religion.  It  was  only 
through  the  rise  of  a  spirit  superior  to  both  patriotism  and 
religion  (as  then  understood),  that  our  country  was  rescued 
from  falling  into  utter  disintegration  and  insignificance. 

The  struggle  by  which  this  happy  era  was  inaugurated  was 
a  tremendous  one :  and  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  struggle  of  prin- 
ciples, apart  from  all  material  vested  interests  or  other  forms 
of  selfishness,  it  is  regarded  by  us  as  constituting  the  grandest 
period  in  our  history. 

As  some  of  its  details  will  necessarily  be  alluded  to  in  the 
course  of  our  narrative,  I  will  not  here  say  more  respecting  it 
than  that  its  result  was  to  extinguish  for  ever,  so  far  as  the  vast 
bulk  of  our  population  is  concerned,  that  antagonism  between 
the  Church  and  the  World,  which  had  for  centuries  been  the 
fount  of  woes  innumerable  to  mankind  ;  and  to  obtain  recogni- 
tion of  the  essential  identity  of  the  two  opposing  forces.  It  is 
the  return  to  the  basis  of  nature,  through  the  abrogation  of  the 
ancient  divorce  between  the  various  departments  of  the  human 
understanding,  that   is  symbolized  in  the  triune  form  of  our 


BY  AND  BY.  31 

modem  life.  Hence  Jie  love  borne  to  it  by  one  who  more  viv- 
idly than  any  other  of  modern  times  realized  the  essential  One- 
ness of  Humanity,  in  its  capabilities  and  significance,  with  its 
sub-standing  and  informing  principle. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  idea  of  such  an  institution 
as  The  Triangle  attained  its  full  development  all  at  once.  It 
required  the  Emancipation  to  restore  the  taste  for  the  almost 
forgotten  art  of  marriage.  The  demand  for  dwellings  suitable 
for  couples  and  families  of  moderate  means,  had  led  to  the  in- 
stitution of  Flats  or  Suites,  and  even  of  Radials,  as  a  ring  of 
houses  was  called,  having  a  central  kitchen  and  service  in  com- 
mon. These  were  a  great  step  in  the  promotion  of  comfort  and 
economy ;  but  they  failed  to  minister  to  that  fulness  of  social 
intercourse  which  all  cultivated  natures  crave.  For,  however 
well  adapted  to  each  other  a  man  and  a  woman  may  be,  their  in- 
tellectual capacities  require  to  draw  at  least  a  part  of  their  sus- 
tenance from  without.  Other\t;ase,  domesticity  itself  becomes  a 
bar  to  the  maintenance  of  individuality. 

To  this  end  they  must  have  a  varied  society  within  their 
reach.  It  was  reserved  for  the  Triangle  to  show  how  this  want 
was  to  be  met.  People  who  watched  with  curiosity  the  growth 
of  the  great  three-cornered  building  which  overlooks  the 
.  Hampstead  Park,  little  thought  that  they  were  witnessing  the 
birth  of  a  system  that  was  to  revolutionize  human  life.  No 
greater  proof  of  its  perfect  adaptation  to  all  the  wants  of  de- 
veloped humanity  could  be  found,  than  in  its  rapid  extension 
to  every  class  of  the  community.  Even  the  artisan  and  the 
laborer  now  have  their  triangular  clubs  of  residence — the  club 
that  civilizes ;  in  place  of  the  "  beershop  "  that  brutalizes — as 
our  ancestors  knew  to  their  cost,  though  they  were  so  terribly 
perplexed  to  find  a  substitute  for  the  latter,  that  some  of  them 
went  to  the  length  of  denouncing  the  social  instinct  altogether, 
as  well  as  the  use  of  all  stimulating  bcA-erages. 

Concerning  the  Triangle,  I  will  here  onl^;  add  further,  that  it 
is  situated  in  the  heart  of  the  intellectual  quarter  of  London  ; 
so  called  because  here  dwell  chiefly  those  who  are  devoted  to 
literature,  science,  and  art.     To  the  east  of  this  quarter  lies  the 


32  BY  AND  BY. 

mercantile  and  industrial ;  to  the  west,  the  fashionable  ;  and  to 
the  south,  the  governmental  and  legal  quarter,  the  whole  cover- 
ing an  area  which  to  our  ancestors  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
Victorian  era  would  have  api^eared  monstrous  and  impossible. 
Yet  it  is  not  so  much  in  a  lateral  direction  that  London  has 
spread,  as  upwards,  through  the  enormous  elevation  given  to 
our  modern  buildings. 


«  »«»  >- 


CHAPTER  VII. 

I  SHALL  now  continue  the  narrative  which  Bertie  has  so  well 
begun  for  me,  and  endeavor  to  weave  into  a  harmonious  whole 
the  various  items  supplied  me  from  the  sources  at  my  com- 
mand. Next  to  Bertie  Greathead,  it  is  mainly  from  the  Avenil 
family  that  I  have  drawn  my  information.  The  whole  of  the 
Wilmers,  to  whom  I  belong,  early  left  the  scene,  and  only 
reappeared  on  it  towards  the  end. 

It  was  by  general  acclamation  of  the  whole  party  of  the  ice- 
berg, and  of  their  relatives,  that  Bertie  undertook  the  charge 
of  tlie  little  Christmas  Carol.  As  his  calling  caused  him  fre- 
quently to  be  absent,  and  as  the  child's  property  promised  to  be 
considerable,  Bertie  begged  that  the  fathers  of  Avenil  and  of 
my  father  might  be  associated  with  him  in  the  trust.  This  was 
done,  and  when  my  father  and  Avenil  came  of  age  they  also 
were  made  ti-ustees. 

The  only  difficulty  was  about  the  place  of  residence  for  the 
child  and  Alma  Nutrix,  for  so  the  new  nurse  was  called.  Ber- 
tie insisted  on  their  living  with  him,  so  attached  had  he  be- 
come to  the  child.  But  his  bachelor's  quarters  were  altogether 
too  straitened  to  admit  such  a  party.  His  fellow  guardians 
wished  him  to  come  into  the  Triangle.  But  he  was  not  a 
member ;  and  on  making  application,  and  being  asked  which 
division  of  tlie  club  he  desired  to  join,  he  found  himself 
ineligible  for  any.     He  could  not  have  the  child  and  its  nurse 


BY  AND   BY.  33 

with  him  in  the  single  men's  quarters ;  and  he  could  not  go 
with  them  to  the  single  women's  quarters.  As  for  the  married 
folks'  division,  he  would  not  hear  of  it.  He  was  not  qualified, 
he  said,  and  did  not  mean  to  he  qualified,  to  occupy  that 
department. 

In  the  meantime,  the  child  and  nurse  were  accommodated  hy 
the  Avenils,  in  their  own  quarters  in  the  club,  and  Bertie  used 
to  visit  them  there.  The  Avenils  had  thus  an  excellent  oppor- 
tunity of  becoming  well  acquainted  with  Alma's  character. 
What  they  saw  of  her  led  them  to  have  a  high  regard  for  her, 
and  it  occurred  to  them  that  the  best  solution  of  the  difficulty 
would  be  her  marriage  with  Bertie.  She,  however,  made  no 
secret  of  her  unwillingness  to  enter  again  upon  an  association 
of  the  kind.  Bertie  became  more  and  more  dissatisfied  at  the 
barrier  to  his  complete  ownership  of  the  child.  At  length  he 
abruptly,  and  some  say  very  crossly,  proposed  to  Alma,  that  as 
they  both  liked  having  the  child  with  them,  they  should  over- 
come their  mutual  aversion  and  be  married,  for  the  sake  of 
the  better  taking  care  of  it.  She  said,  that  if  that  was  all  he 
wanted,  she  had  no  objection  ;  and  so  the  couple,  after  entering 
into  a  contract  of  the  third  class,  became  with  the  infant, 
inmates  of  the  married  folks'  quarters.  It  was  said  that  they 
continued  to  be  very  cold  and  distant  to  each  other  for  a  con- 
siderable period  after  this.  But  the  child,  who  so  early  in  its 
career  had  power  thus  to  bring  these  two  persons  together  in 
spite  of  themselves,  exhibited  its  power  yet  more  in  reconciling 
them  to  their  union  afterwards.  For,  to  the  great  amusement 
and  delight  of  their  friends,  Bertie  and  Alma  fairly  fell  in  love 
with  each  other  after  their  marriage ;  and  so  long  as  she  lived, 
no  more  truly  attached  couple  was  to  be  found.  It  was  his 
reminiscence  of  this  tender  passage  in  his  history  that  caused 
Bertie's  voice  to  falter  in  his  recital.  She  died  when  little 
Criss  was  between  three  and  four  years  old,  leaving  no  child 
of  her  own  to  divide  Bertie's  affection ;  and  has  been  sincerely 
mourned  by  him  ever  since. 

Bertie  then,  for  his  own  solace,  took  the  child  with  him  on 
an  aerial  journey.     It  had  begun  to  pine  a  little,  as  if  for  its 
3 


34  -  BY  AND  BY. 

foster  mother.  The  journey  did  it  so  much  good  that  Bertie 
couchided  that,  having  been  born  in  the  air,  the  air  was  its 
natural  ehMuont.  After  this  it  was  his  constant  companion, 
until  old  enough  to  go  to  school.  It  was  doubtless  in  a  meas- 
ure owing  to  the  action  of  the  life  aloft  upon  a  peculiar  tem- 
perament, that  little  Criss  grew  up  to  be  the  man  he  was.  It 
served  to  develop  a  temperament  which  was  itself  the  result  of 
an  union  between  two  races  of  opposite  characteristics.  A 
careful  examination  of  the  contents  of  the  balloon,  made  after 
Bertie's  arrival  in  England,  revealed  letters  and  other  docu- 
ments which  proved  that  the  old  man,  though  himself  of  Jew- 
ish extraction,  had  married  an  European  wx)man ;  and  that 
Oriss's  mother  Zoe  was  their  daugliter,  being  named  after  her 
mother.  She,  again,  had  a  husband  or  lover,  who  was  a  Greek, 
whose  child  Criss  was.  Her  father  hated  this  Greek,  and 
believed  him  to  be  the  emissary  of  enemies  who  were  plotting 
against  him.  It  was  to  escape  from  their  malevolence  that  he 
had  embarked  in  his  balloon  with  his  daughter  and  his  wealth, 
intending  to  settle  in  some  country  where  he  would  be  more 
secure  than  in  Syria.  He  was  completely  in  the  dark  as  to 
how  far  matters  had  gone  between  his  daughter  and  her  lover. 
It  had  been  with  a  breaking  heart,  and  on  the  eve  of  her 
expected  confinement,  that  she  had  received  his  command  to 
enter  the  balloon  and  start  instantly.  She  dared  not  dis- 
obey him.  Her  lover  was  not  at  hand.  A  hasty,  blurred 
half-finished  letter  which  was  found  in  the  balloon,  evidently 
intended  for  him,  revealed  much  of  the  above.  It  remained 
doubtful  whether  her  fall  was  accidental  or  intentional.  The 
fact  of  her  child  being  there,  newly-born,  and  helidess,  made  it 
impossible  that  she  could  have  contemplated  abandoning  it,  if 
in  her  senses.  But  agony  and  terror  have  sometimes  been 
kno\\'Ti  to  induce  women  to  do  even  this,  under  a  condition 
of  society  in  which  they  and  their  affections  were  regarded  as 
the  property  of  their  parents  or  other  relatives,  and  it  was 
accounted  a  crime  of  the  deepest  turpitude  to  assert  a  right  of 
ownership  in  their  own  hearts  and  persons. 

Thank  heaven  we  have  got  so  far  past  that  stage  of  woman's 


BY  AND  BY.  35 

long  martyrdom,  that  her  mistakes  in  the  bestowal  of  her  affec- 
tions are  now  met  by  a  smile  of  encouragement  to  be  wiser  in 
the  future,  and  not  by  a  fierce  frown  of  unrelenting  condemna- 
tion for  all  time  to  come. 

Bertie  found  some  confirmation  of  these  conclusions  after- 
v;ards,  on  visiting  Damascus.  There  was  much  mystery  about 
the  old  man;  and  his  sudden  disappearance  was  only  in  keep- 
ing with  all  that  was  known  of  him.  He  was  believed  to  be 
connected  in  some  way  with  one  of  the  ancient  Royal  Families 
of  the  East,  and  to  be  in  constant  fear  of  attempts  on  his  life 
or  property.  Besides  his  house  in  Damascus,  he  had  a  summer 
residence  on  Lebanon ;  and  as  no  claimants  had  appeared  for 
these,  they  were  taken  charge  of  by  the  authorities,  to  be  kept 
sealed  up  for  the  period  appointed  by  law  in  such  cases. 

Of  Criss's  father,  the  Greek  Lover  of  Zoe,  Bertie  found  no 
trace  whatever.  And  he  and  his  fellow-guardians  decided  that 
it  was  not  necessary  to  advertise  the  finding  of  the  child  and 
the  property,  inasmuch  as  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  any 
lawful  claimant  would  not  hesitate  to  advertise  for  them  him- 
self. No  such  advertisement  appeared,  and  Bertie  owned  to 
himself  that  it  was  only  with  vast  reluctance  that  he  could 
have  brought  himself  to  yield  his  charge  even,  to  its  own  father. 
The  non-appearance  of  a  claimant  was  therefore  a  great  relief 
to  him. 

To  one  portion  of  the  contents  of  the  balloon  I  must  recur ; 
it  is  a  portion  which  plays  an  important  part  in  my  story. 

The  examination  made  by  Bertie  on  the  iceberg  had  neces- 
sarily been  hasty  and  superficial.  It  was  shortly  after  reaching 
home  that  he  requested  the  elder  Avenil  and  Wilmer  to  be 
present  at  the  opening  of  the  boxes,  as  he  considered  whatever 
of  value  they  might  contain  to  be  the  property  of  the  child,  and 
therefore  vested  in  them  jointly  as  its  trustees. 

Mr.  Avenil's  knowledge  of  mineralogy  was  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  perceive  that  some  of  the  gems  w^ere  of  great 
value.  A  jeweller  with  whom  he  was  acquainted  being  called 
in,  the  report  he  gave  was  so  startling,  that  they  determined, 


36  BY  AND  BY. 

with  the  jeweller's  advice,  to  consult  a  first-class  diamond 
merchant.  There  was  one  in  London  at  that  moment,  a  Jew, 
who  was  connected  with  the  great  houses  in  the  principal 
capitals,  and  was  acknowledged  as  standing  at  the  head  of  his 
profession.  This  man,  on  being  introduced  to  a  view  of  the 
gems  in  Avenil's  rooms,  was  so  astounded  that  he  sank  hack  in 
his  seat  and  looked  wistfully  at  the  trustees.  Eecovering  him- 
self, he  enquired  if  he  might  be  made  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  the  jewels,  and  the  mode  in  which  they  had  come 
into  the  present  holder's  hands. 

Bertie  contented  himself  with  saying  that  they  were  heir- 
looms in  the  family  of  the  ward  of  whom  he  and  his  two  friends 
were  trustees.  Finding  that  nothing  more  was  forthcoming, 
the  merchant  said : 

"  Diamonds  like  these  are  always  catalogued.  No  two  famous 
stones  have  precisely  the  same  weight  or  form,  and  few  have 
jirecisely  the  same  hue.  Here  is  a  printed  list  of  all  the  prin- 
cipal diamonds  in  the  world,  including  those  which  have  dis- 
appeared ;  for  such  things  are  never  destroyed.  They  are 
always  kept  out  of  the  way  of  fire,  but  they  disappear  through 
being  stolen  and  hidden  away,  and  the  thieves  dying  and 
leaving  no  note.  I  propose,  with  your  permission,  to  weigh 
some  of  these  larger  ones,  and  compare  them  with  my  list." 

He  then  produced  a  balance  of  a  marvellously  delicate  con- 
struction, and  having  ascertained  the  exact  weight  and  counted 
the  sides  of  a  wonderfully  magnificent  diamond,  he  referred  to 
his  book.  What  he  found  there  made  him  start  again.  He 
said  nothing,  however,  but  proceeded  with  tremulous  hand  to 
make  a  like  comparison  with  some  of  the  others.  After  refer-  ' 
ring  to  another  part  of  his  book,  he  addressed  the  trustees  and 
said: 

"  Gentlemen,  when  you  have  heard  what  I  am  about  to 
say,  you  will  not  wonder  at  my  surprise,  and,  I  trust,  not  be 
averse  to  giving  me  the  information  I  have  already  requested 
of  you.  The  last  time  that  these  gems  were  seen  in  public,  it 
was  in  the  capacity  of  crown  jewels  of  the  brilliant  but  short- 
lived empire  of  the   North   Pacific.      You  ~  are   doubtless   all 


BY  AND  BY.  37 

familiar  with  the  extraordinary  career  of  the  Californian  sailor- 
warrior,  who  maintained  the  independence  of  the  states  of 
'North  America  which  border  on  the  Pacific,  against  those  on 
the  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  erected  them  int6  an 
empire  unrivalled  in  grandeur  and  extent,  bringing  all  the 
islands  of  that  great  ocean,  with  their  enormous  wealth  of 
produce,  beneath  his  sway ;  and  who  was*finally  baffled  in  his 
scheme  of  universal  dominion  in  that  hemisphere,  by  the  de- 
termined and  heroic  resistance  of  the  allied  powers  of  Australia 
and  New  Zealand.  Ah,  gentlemen,  those  were  exciting  times 
ill  that  hemisphere.  Then,  for  the  first  time  since  the  days 
sung  by  Moses,  Homer,  and  Milton,  earth,  sea,  and  air  bore  an 
equal  share  in  the  contests  of  men.  The  lofty  ranges  of  the 
Bocky  Mountains  and  the  Sierra  Nevada  witnessed  many  a 
terrible  struggle  between  the  armies  of  the  eastern  and  western 
powers  of  the  continent.  The  Pacific  swarmed  with  war-ships, 
swifter  and  mightier  than  any  before  imagined.  And  ever  and 
anon  in  the  upper  regions  of  the  atmosphere,  occurred  dreadful 
•conflicts  between  the  aerial  armies  of  the  rival  powers ;  while 
here  and  tlaere  on  the  lovely  but  lonely  isles  of  the  great  ocean 
would  drop  down  a  detachment  of  invincible  warriors,  and  in 
the  name  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  contending  parties  reduce 
them  to  submission  and  tribute. 

"  Forgive  my  repeating  what  every  school-boy  knows,  and 
the  oldest  of  us  can  almost  remember ;  but  professional  enthu- 
siasm has  invested  that  period  with  an  overpowering  interest 
for  me  ;  for  never  before  or  since  have  gems  attained  such  a 
value  as  under  that  brilliant  and  reckless  ruler.  It  was  on  the 
downfall  of  the  adventurer,  for  so  I  suppose  I  must  call  him, 
seeing  that  he  did  not  succeed  in  establishing  his  kingdom, 
that  these  gems  were  lost.  His  end  was  as  strange  as  his  ori- 
gin and  career. 

"  Born  in  a  Californian  placer,  and  carrying  in  his  veins  the 
blood  of  that  long  famous  heroic  family  of  France,  the  Bona- 
partes,  and  of  the  renowned  high  priest  of  the  once  powerful 
sect  of  the  Mormon.s,  King  George  Francis,  on  the  collapse  of 
his  empire,  quitted  his  capital,  San  Francisco,  in  an  atiromotive. 


38  BY  AND   BY. 

His  hope  was  to  reach  the  Sandwich  Islands,  the  chief  depot  and 
head-quarters  of  his  fleet.  Once  there,  lie  could  for  a  long  time 
defy  the  concentrated  forces  of  his  foes,  and  enjoy  the  luxuries' 
of  the  voluptuous  court  he  was  accustomed  to  hold  there.  His 
flight  was  at  once  known  to  his  enemies,  who  were  assenilded 
on  the  coast  of  California,  and  an  aerial  sqiuidron  started  in 
pursuit.  The  distance  being  but  two  thousand  miles,  there  was 
no  time  to  be  lost  if  he  was  to  be  overtaken  on  the  way.  He 
was  known  to  be  heavily  laden,  and  to  have  his  chief  valuables 
with  him  ;  and  he  was  accompanied  by  his  minister  of  finance, 
a  man  of  Oriental  extraction,  who  had  extraordinary  influence 
over  the  emperor,  and  over  whom  hung  some  mystery.  Many 
believed  him  to  be  a  Jew. 

"  His  pursuers  reckoned  on  their  superior  speed  to  reach  the 
islands  first  unperceived,  and  capture  him  on  his  arrival  before 
he  could  land.  Fixing  their  rendezvous  for  the  summit  of 
Mouna  Roa,  tliey  got  there  in  time  to  conceal  themselves  in 
the  hollows  of  an  extinct  crater,  and  take  up  their  posts  of  ob- 
servation. Heavily  laden  though  they  knew  the  car  of  the 
fugitive  to  be,  its  machinery  was  so  powerful  that  they  had  no 
reason  to  suppose  he  would  depart  from  his  usual  custom  of  fly- 
ing high  until  directly  over  his  intended  destination,  and  then 
dropping  straight  down  upon  it.  Their  plan  was  to  intercept 
him  at  the  moment  of  his  descent,  and  its  success  depended 
mainly  upon  his  being  unaided  by  his  partizans  in  the  islands. 
Had  he  telegraphed  to  them  of  his  coming,  a  detachment  of 
guards  and  officials  would  have  risen  to  meet  him,  in  too  strong 
force  to  be  withstood.  The  absence  of  any  such  demonstration 
led  the  party  on  the  look-out  to  surmise  that  either  through 
confidence,  haste,  or  treachery,  he  had  not  announced  his 
coming. 

"  They  had  not  long  to  wait.  In  a  very  few  hours  a  spot 
appeared  in  the  north-eastern  horizon,  which  soon  developed 
into  the  well-known  outlines  of  the  imperial  car.  Rising  at 
once  into  the  air,  the  enemy  disposed  themselves  so  as  to  be 
able  to  make  sure  of  intercepting  their  prize.  The  comparative 
diminutiveness    of    their   vessels   would   have    rendered    them 


BY  AND  BY.  39 

unseen  by  liim,  while  his  was  plainly  visible  to  them  ;  moreover, 
the  smoke  which  arose  from  the  volcano  beneath,  the  terrible 
Kilauea,  then  in  a  state  of  violent  activity,  would  serve  to  make 
the  whole  scene  on  their  side  indistinct  to  one  at  a  distance. 
Even  when  on  his  near  approach  the  emperor  perceived  the 
hostile  squadron,  he  had  no  reason  to  suppose  it  to  be  other  than 
some  of  his  own  islanders,  or  other  excursionists,  on  a  visit  to 
the  renowned  volcano. 

"  Too  late  he  discovered  that  he  was  surrounded  by  enemies. 
The  imperial  car  had  been  brought  to  a  stand-still  preparatory 
to  its  descent.  They  had  considerable  way  on  them,  while  lie 
was  motionless.  This  was  the  moment  for  which  they  had 
watched.  They  darted  on  him  like  a  flock  of  swift  eagles  on 
an  unwieldy  swan.  Seeing  the  capture  of  his  vessel  imminent, 
the  Emperor,  who  was  a  man  of  unbounded  intrepidity,  com- 
mitted himself  to  a  parachute,  in  the  use  of  which  he  was  a 
tolerable  adept ;  and  presently  his  enemies,  to  their  immense 
chagrin,  saw  him  slipping  through  their  hands,  as  he  descended, 
at  first  rapidly,  and  then,  as  the  resistance  of  the  air  began  to 
tell,  slowly  and  steadily  towards  the  earth. 

"Now  came  the  catastrophe  which  led  to  my  telling  this 
long  story.  During  the  struggle  aloft,  the  contending  parties 
had  drifted  immediately  over  the  vast  crater  of  Kilauea.  Let 
me  describe  it,  for  I  have  seen  it.  No  diamond  merchant  con- 
siders his  education  complete  until  he  has  made  a  pilgrimage 
to  that  fiery  sarcophagus  of  so  much  beauty  and  wealth. 

"Ascending  the  mountain,  and  traversing  the  table-land,  you 
come  suddenly  to  the  brink  of  a  gulf  at  least  a  mile  in  diameter, 
and  with  vertical  sides  from  one  to  two  thousand  feet  deep. 
The  whole  interior  of  this  abyss  is  a  furnace  of  molten  lava, 
agitated  like  the  ocean  in  a  tempest,  and  tossing  aloft  billows 
of  fire,  which  do  not,  as  in  the  ocean,  flow  in  one  direction, 
impelled  by  a  steady  wind,  but  meet  from  opposite  quarters 
with  such  violence  as  to  dash  their  fiery  spray  high  in  the  air. 
And  all  this  fierce  contention  goes  on  amid  such  appalling 
sounds  of  rage  and  sighs,  and  groans  and  murmurs,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  avoid  fancying  one  is  gazing  upon  the  fabled  hell 


40  JiY  -^^NB  BY. 

of  the  poets,  and  watcliing  tlie  throes  of  giant  fiends  in  their 
agony. 

"  How  the  Emperor  came  to  meet  his  fate  none  could  tell. 
Probably  the  niei)liitic  vapors  stifled  his  senses,  and  made  him 
unable  to  direct  his  course.  But  he  was  seen  to  descend  into 
the  very  midst  of  this  furnace,  and  with  him  went  the  finest 
collection  of  diamonds  in  the  world.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of 
it.  They  had  disappeared  from  the  Palace  at  San  Francisco. 
They  were  not  found  in  the  captured  balloon ;  and  they  have 
not  been  heard  of  since.  I  ought  to  mention,  if  only  for  the 
credit  of  my.o\ni  countryman,  that  an  heroic  attempt  was  made 
to  save  him.  His  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  seeing  his  dan- 
ger, made  a  dash  at  him  on  another  parachute,  and  actually 
succeeded  in  overtaking  and  grappling  with  him  for  several 
moments.  But  he  was  forced  at  last  to  let  him  go,  and  with 
difficulty  saved  himself. 

''  And  now,  pardon  me  if  once  more  I  ask  how  these  jewels 
which,  a  couple  of  generations  ago,  were  thus  lost  in  the  crater 
of  Kilauea,  have  returned  into  existence  in  the  hands  of  their 
present  owner.  If  I  am  exceeding  discretion  in  making  inqui- 
ry, I  apologize  and  withdraw  it." 

All  looked  to  Bertie  Greathead.  He  had  resolved  to  keep 
the  matter  secret,  at  least  for  the  present.  He  lelt  the  tempta- 
tion strong  upon  him  to  reply — 

"  Lost  in  a  crater  of  fire,  they  were  found  in  a  crater  of 
ice  !  " 

But  he  resisted  it,  and  observed  merely  that  it  was  probably 
a  case  of  mistaken  identity. 

The  merchant  shook  his  head,  and  looked  disappointed.  But 
he  only  said, — 

"  In  that  case  the  previous  history  of  the  lost  jewels  can  have 
no  interest  for  you.  Now  what  do  you  want  done  with  these  ? 
I  may  be  able  to  find  you  a  purchaser,  but  I  can  undertake  no 
responsibility  about  title." 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Mr.  Avenil,  somewhat  sharply  ;  "  that 
is  our  business.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  describe  them  as  heir- 
looms in  a  family  that  wishes   to  realize  their  value.     And  it 


BY  AND   BY.  41 

occurs  to  me,  that  as  we  are  disposing  of  the  property  of  a  mi- 
nor, it  will  be  well  to  make  a  condition  providing  for  their  re- 
purchase at  his  option  on  the  occasion  of  his  attaining  his 
majority." 

The  merchant  declared  that  such  a  condition  was  without  a 
precedent,  but  that  he  would  do  his  best.  He  had  at  that  very 
time  a  commission  to  provide  a  set  of  diamonds  to  be  worn  at 
the  coronation  of  the  Emperor  of  Central  Africa,  a  ceremonial 
which  had  been  long  deferred,  owing  to  the  loss  of  the  crown 
jewels  of  that  country,  and  the  failure  to  procure  any  worthy 
to  replace  them. 

Not  to  multiply  details,  I  will  only  add  that  a  sale  of  the 
jewels  was  effected  in  the  manner  projjosed,  the  eagerness  of 
the  African  monarch  to  obtain  them  at  any  price  the  moment 
he  received  his  agent's  report,  leading  him  to  consent  to  the 
unusual  proviso  for  their  future  redemption,  rather  than  forego 
their  jjresent  possession. 

It  was  highly  improbable  that  any  private  individual  would 
care  to  keep  such  an  amount  as  that  of  the  purchase-money 
lying  idle  in  the  shape  of  jewels,  but  the  trustees  were  agreed 
as  to  the  propriety  of  retaining  the  option,  and  the  method 
they  adopted  of  investing  the  fortune  accruing  from  the  sale 
Avould  enable  its  possessor  easily  to  re-purchase  them  on  com- 
ing of  age.  For  it  was  carefully  placed  in  good  governmental 
and  co-operative  securities,  to  average  the  moderate  rate  of  ten 
per  cent.,  the  income  being  re-invested  as  it  came  in,  so  as  to 
allow  the  capital  to  accumulate  by  compound  interest. 

Bertie  was  unwilling  to  accept  any  portion  of  the  child's 
income  towards  its  maintenance  and  education.  But  he  was 
overruled  by  Mr.  Avenil,  who  said  that  the  immensity  of  the 
fortune  would  give  his  scruples  about  such  a  trifle  the  appear- 
ance of  affectation,  and  also  that  it  would  be  unfair  to  the  boy 
himself  to  restrict  his  advantages  to  suit  the  far  narrower 
means  of  any  of  themselves. 


42  BT  AND  BY. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Under  the  loving  guardianship  of  Bertie  Greathead,  little 
Criss  Carol  throve  wondrously.  Mr.  Avenil  and  Mr.  Wilmer 
knew  well  that  they  were  doing  the  best  for  the  child's 
highest  welfare  in  committing  it  to  such  superintendence. 
They  knew  that  the  hardness  and  irresponsibility  of  character 
likely  to  be  engendered  by  the  jjossession  of  ample  wealth 
would  find  its  best  corrective  in  the  companionship  of  one  so 
simple,  tender,  and  true  as  Bertie  the  aeronaut.  Whatever 
intellectual  supervision  was  needed,  Avenil  would  himself 
supply,  but  he  agreed  fully  with  Mr.  Wilmer  in  ranking  char- 
acter as  above  attainments,  especially  for  one  exempted  by 
fortune  from  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  endowed  with  an 
almost  unlimited  power  of  influencing  others. 

The  struggle  for  existence  !  I  shall  not,  I  trust,  be  neglect- 
ing my  story  for  my  reflections,  if  I  make  here  some  observa- 
tions respecting  the  origin  and  development  of  the  period 
which  produced  the  character  I  have  undertaken  to  present. 
AVe  are,  each  one  of  us,  the  product,  not  of  the  present  only, 
but  of  the  past.  Nature,  though  it  repudiates  the  vicarious 
principle,  links  all  things  together  in  an  inevitable  sequence. 
It  is  to  the  ever-memorable  nineteenth  century — a  period  to 
which  we  trace  the  first  dawning  of  our  glorious  Emancipa- 
tion— that  we  are  indebted  for  the  clue  whereby  we  have 
escaped  entanglement  in  those  labyrinths  of  transcendental 
speculation,  in  which  our  forefathers  lost  themselves. 

How  would  they  have  rejoiced  coidd  they  have  seen  in  their 
day  the  revelation  of  the  divine  method  of  the  universe  which 
has  been  made  to  us  ! — could  they  have  known  that  in  the 
original  substance  which  filled  infinity  was  such  capacity  for 
evolution  as  would  account  for  all  subsequent  phenomena  what- 
ever ;  that  the  various  steps  of  physical  motion,  heat,  life,  light, 
sensation,  thought,  conscience,  follow  each  other  necessarily, 
evolved,  as  the  spark  from  the  contact  of  steel  with  flint,  from 


BY  AND  BY.  43 

the  contact  of'part  with  part, — given  only  time,  or  rather  eter- 
nit}^,  for  the  process !  and  this  not  ovi'r  the  infinite  wliole 
merely,  but  throughout  each  separate  jjortion. 

It  was  the  struggle  for  existence, — a  struggle  often,  doubt- 
less, in  those  who  are  too  weak  to  endure  to  the  end,  fatal  to 
that  Conscience,  which  alone  we  recognize  as  worthy  to  be  the 
final  cause  of  all  things — that  at  length  produced  the  con- 
science which  now  governs  the  world, — at  least,  in  its  niaturer 
parts, — and  constitutes  the  salt  of  its  preservation.  Read  by 
this  light,  history  exhibits  nation  after  nation,  race  after  race, 
Aryan,  Turanian,  Semitic,  all  faltering  and  failing,  tried  and 
found  wanting,  through  lack  of  capacity  for  development  up  to 
this  the  crowning  point  of  the  structure  of  humanity.  No 
single  race  was  equal  to  the  achievement ;  and  so  it  comes 
that  now  the  first  place  on  the  earth  is  held  by  the  peoples 
into  whose  composition  enters  something  of  each  of  these,  but 
most  of  the  Aryan,  and  that  under  its  Anglo-Teutonic  form, 
this  being  preeminently  the  race  which  acknowledges  the 
supremacy  of  man's  brain  and  heart,  and  ranks  the  intellect, 
the  moral  sense,  and  the  affections  of  living  humanity,  as  above 
all  traditions,  and  conventions  whatsoever. 

Such  was  the  significance   of  "  the  glorious  Emancipation." 

Young  Christmas  Carol  was  fortunate  alike  in  the  period  of 
his  existence,  and  in  the  persons  among  whom  he  fell.  Had 
he,  with  his  beauty,  his  wealth,  and  his  mystery,  lighted  upon 
our  isles  in  the  days  when  Money  was  king  and  Conventionality 
was  god,  the  story  of  his  life  could  scarcely  have  been  other 
than  a  tale  of  the  degradation  and  ruin  of  a  character,  of  his 
essential  innermost  sacrificed  to  his  accidental  outermost,  to 
the  utter  effacement  of  the  divine  capacities  of  his  being  as  an 
individual.  But  he  came  in  a  time  when  the  dominant  charac- 
teristics and  achievements  of  modern  society  were  such  as  found 
fair  representatives  in  men  like  those  who  became  his  friends 
and  guardians.  Greathead,  Wilmer,  and  Avenil,  each  was  an 
exponent  of  a  different  yet  co-ordinate  factor  in  the  sum  of 
triune  perfection.     With  Goodness,  Beauty,  and  Use  thus  im- 


44  BY  AND  BT. 

personated,  to  preside  over  his  youth,  Christmas  Carol  had  all 
the  external  advantages  that  the  world  even  of  these  our  days 
could  bestow. 

I  assign  the  function  of  representing  Beauty  in  the  above- 
mentioned  category,  to  my  grandfather  and  father,  each  of 
whom  in  turn  were  the  lad's  trustees  and  guardians  ;  for  the 
same  exquisite  spirit  of  poesy  animated  them  both,  and  their 
influence  had  much  to  do  with  the  nurture  of  the  lad's  nature 
on  its  softer  side.  Would  that  death  had  not  so  early  removed 
my  father.  Yet  even  Criss's  ample  repayment  to  me  would  not 
have  exceeded  his  indebtedness  to  him.  I  believe  my  father's 
chief  regret  in  dying  arose  from  his  desire  to  cany  on  to  com- 
pletion the  education  of  which  he  had  helped  to  lay  the  foun- 
dation. 

Phj^sically  and  mentally  little  Criss  Carol  exhibited  the  char- 
acteristics of  his  ancestry.  The  Greek  came  out  in  his  keen 
appreciation  of  knowledge  and  beauty ;  the  Semitic  showed  it- 
self in  his  sensitiveness  to  the  imaginative  and  emotional. 
Never  was-  prophet-poet  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  possessed  by  a 
more  vivid  sense  of  a  divine  personality.  Soar  far  aloft  with 
him  as  Bertie  would  on  his  voyages  while  yet  a  child,  or  after- 
wards when  as  a  lad  he  had  become  an  adej^t  unsurpassed  in 
the  management  of  his  beloved  "Ariel,"  and  mounted  by  him- 
self to  regions  of  air  inaccessible  to  others,  even  the  most  dar- 
ing, his  foster-father  owned  himself  startled  at  the  boy's  abso- 
lute inability  to  comprehend  the  feeling  of  loneliness.  Some- 
times he  seemed  as  if  he  held  commune  with  beings  palpable 
only  to  himself.  But  Bertie,  while  he  watched  and  wondered, 
respected  the  individuality  of  the  child's  manifest  genius,  and 
therefore  abstained  from  any  remark  that  might  chill  his  Si>irit, 
and  throw  him  back  upon  himself. 

When  permitted  to  make  ascents  by  himself  it  was  Criss's 
delight  to  shoot  rapidly  up  to  a  great  height,  and  there  remain 
almost  stationary,  like  an  eagle  poised  on  outspread  wings, 
without  help  from  his  propelling  apparatus.     Here  he  could  re- 


BT  AND  BY.  45 

main  floating  about  on  his  parachute.  The  perfection  wliicli 
he  soon  attained  in  the  use  of  this  appliance  was  so  great  as  to 
relieve  Bertie  of  any  misapprehension  on  the  score  of  accident. 
His  parachute  was  one  of  the  flat  kind,  so  difficult  to  master, 
but  so  admirable  in  its  action  when  mastered.  It  would  almost 
float  on  the  air  by  itself  when  expanded ;  and  Criss,  who  was 
slenderly  built,  of  moderate  stature,  and  a  wonderfully  active 
and  wiry  frame,  was  able  by  its  aid  alone  to  raise  himself  from 
the  ground  and  remain  in  the  air  for  a  considerable  time.  In- 
deed to  fly,  seemed  to  be  almost  as  instinctive  with  him  as  with 
the  birds  ;  and  it  was  one  of  the  prettiest  sights  to  see  him, 
quietly  and  without  ajoparent  effort,  soaring  aloft  in  the  clear 
blue,  sustained  by  the  white  expanded  wings  of  his  parachute, 
with  a  crowd  of  birds  flocking  round  him,  and  seeming  to  re- 
cognize him  as  of  their  own  order. 

As  he  grew  up  he  was  allowed  to  have  for  his  own  a  rocket- 
spiral  machine  of  the  most  perfect  make  that  the  skill  of  Ave- 
nil  could  devise  and  his  own  fortune  purchase.  This  was 
worked  by  the  power  long  ago  discovered,  but  for  the  secret 
of  whose  practical  application  our  ancestors  for  generations 
sighed  and  toiled.  Their  mistake  consisted,  not  in  their  con- 
ception of  the  potentialities  of  the  magnetic  coil,  but  in  sup- 
posing that  the  power  produced  was  only  in  proportion  to  the 
amount  of  the  chemical  and  metallic  elements  consumed.  It 
was  the  discovery  that  these  agents  are  but  a  necessaxy  initia- 
tive, and  that  the  power  is  capable  of  almost  indefinite  en- 
largement without  a  corresponding  increase  in  their  consiimp- 
tion,  but  merely  by  bringing  other  and  more  subtle  elements 
into  cooperation,  that  has  made  possible  all  our  modern  me- 
chanical developments. 

So  naturally  did  Criss  take  to  flying,  that  it  needed  no 
laborious  instilment  of  the  formulae  respecting  the  relations  of 
atmospheric  pressure  to  falling  bodies,  to  produce  the  confi- 
dence indispensable  to  the  exercise  of  the  art.  The  ancient 
hymn,  "  Heaven  is  my  home,"  had  for  him  from  the  first  a 
peculiar  and  literal  significance. 

******* 


46  BY  AND  BY. 

Bertie  was  long  profoundly  affected  by  the  loss  of  the  wife 
he  had  so  curiously  acquired;  and  partly  under  the  influence 
of  this  feeling,  partly  for  the  sake  of  a  more  bracing  air  for 
Ciiss,  he  removed  his  head-quarters  from  the  Triangle  to  a 
cottage  on  the  Surrey  hills,  situated  near  the  new  town  which 
was  then  rapidly  spinging  up.  It  was  here,  where,  except  on 
one  side,  there  was  scarce  a  tree  or  impediment  for  miles,  that 
Criss  made  his  first  essays,  and  acquired  his  chief  skill  in 
aerostation  and  aeronautics.  Had  Alma  lived,  and  their  home 
continued  to  be  in  the  city,  it  would  scarcely  have  been  possi- 
ble for  Criss  to  become  what  he  was  ;  and  had  his  lot  fallen  in 
a  wooded  country,  it  would  have  been  equally  impossible.  We 
have  here  an  illustration  of  the  apparent  fortuity  of  the  events 
which  dictate  fate.  An  open  down,  and  a  convenient  starting 
point  in  the  shape  of  an  old  chalk  quarry,  from  whose  brink 
he  could  take  his  first  flights,  were  the  leading  agents  in  the 
formation  of  his  career. 

His  skill  once  acquired  in  the  country,  its  exercise  was  not 
interfered  with  by  a  return  to  tow^n.  Every  house-top  afforded 
him  a  resting-place,  and  it  was  one  of  his  chief  amusements  to 
pass,  sustained  by  his  parachute  alone,  from  one  street  to 
another,  without  ever  descending  lower  than  the  roofs,  but 
merely  touching  them  lightly  in  order  to  spring  from  them 
onwards. 

We  in  our  days  are  so  accustomed  to  things  as  we  have  them, 
that  we  are  apt  to  forget  they  were  not  always  so.  There  was 
a  time  when  the  roofs  of  their  houses  were  as  strange  and  mys- 
terious to  the  inmates,  as  the  interior  of  the  earth  on  which 
they  stood.  But,  the  practice  of  aeronautics,  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  magnetism  for  coal  in  the  production  of  heat,  combined 
to  bring  about  a  great  revolution  in  our  architecture  and  habits, 
and  affected  even  our  system  of  jurisprudence.  For  it  was 
found  necessary,  in  the  interests  of  that  privacy^  which  is  essen- 
tial to  the  development  of  the  character  and  affections,  to 
secure  our  interiors  from  the  observation  of  impertinent  aerial- 
ists,  by  making  certain  changes  in  our  window   system,   and 


BY  AND  BY.  47 

also  to  add  certain  stringent  provisions  to  the  laws  relating  to 
libel  and  slander.  The  most  effective  of  these  provisions  was 
one  that  was  in  direct  opposition  to  the  enactment  of  our 
ancestors.  There  was  a  period  when  they  suffered  the  libeller 
to  go  free  on  pleading  justification  and  sustaining  his  plea  by- 
proof  of  its  truth.  We,  on  the  contrary,  treat  such  a  plea  as 
an  aggravation  of  the  original  offense,  and  punish  it  accord- 
ingly. 

But  what  would  our  ancestors  have  said,  could  they  have 
seen  the  London  of  to-day,  on  a  fine  evening !  The  growing 
scarcity  of  coal  once  deplored  by  them  as  the  commencement  of 
Britain's  decline  and  downfall,  proved  in  reality  its'  greatest 
blessing,  through  the  impulse  it  gave  to  scientific  research  and 
the  discovery  of  substitutes.  Not  to  dwell  upon  the  mechanical 
and  economical  gains  thus  effected,  I  will  mention  only  the 
gain  in  comfort  and  health.  Who  now  that  sees  our  flat  and 
commodious  roofs,  with  their  friendly  gatherings,  and  elegant 
adornments,  can  realize  the  time  when  for  an  aerialist  to  pass 
over  a  large  town,  at  a  moderate  height,  would  have  been  to 
court  destruction  by  suffocation  !  For  then  every  house  was  a 
volcano,  and  every  chimney  a  crater,  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
eruption,  vomiting  forth  fire  and  smoke  that  made  the  atmos- 
phere lurid,  and  loaded  it  with  darkness  and  poison.  Now, 
the  roofs  of  our  houses  are  the  favorite  resort  of  iuA^alids,  where 
the  freshest  air  and  the  quietest  repose  are  to  be  found,  and 
not  a  "  London  black,"  once  so  proverbial,  comes  to  soil  their 
garments.  Instead  of  seeking  pure  air  in  the  country,  as 
people  used  to  do,  such  is  the  perfection  to  which  sanitary 
science  has  been  brought  in  our  time,  that  invalids  leave  the 
country  to  seek  the  purer  air  of  the  town.  The  abolition  of 
coal-gas  for  the  pur2:)ose  of  lighting  has  much  to  do  with  this. 
So  brilliant,  now,  are  our  towns  at  night,  that  in  many  a  house 
little  extra  light  is  needed  beyond  that  which  comes  from  with- 
out. Many  a  pleasant  acquaintance  did  Criss  make  in  his  town 
sallies  over  the  roofs,  and  many  a  sick  person  learnt  to  watch 
eagerly  for  his  bright  look  and  cheerful  converse. 

Whether  dwelling  in  town  or  country,  the  scholastic  part  of 


48  BY  AND  BY. 

Criss's  education  was  carried  on  with  the  utmost  care,  under 
the  admirable  National  School  system  for  which  our  country 
has  now  for  a  long  time  been  noted.  It  was,  indeed,  a  happy 
day  for  .England,  when  her  people  determined  to  throw  all 
public  endowments  of  Church  and  School  iuto  one  common 
fund,  and  apply  it  on  a  consistent  and  homogeneous  system  to 
the  cultivation  of  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual  faculties 
of  the  whole  people,  in  a  manner  neither  coldly  secular  nor 
harshly  sectarian. 

The  steps  whereby  the  country  arrived  at  a  solution  of  that 
once  famous  ReUfjioiis  Dijffindtij,  by  Avhicli  our  unhappy  ances- 
tors suffered  themselves  to  be  rent  and  divided  into  hostile  fac- 
tions, to  the  utter  destruction  of  all  patriotic  impulses;  and 
the  part  played  by  that  Difficulty  in  idtimately  promoting  the 
establishment  of  an  uniform  Canon  of  Reference,  for  the  solu- 
tion of  all  questions  requiring  to  be  solved,  I  may  have  occasion, 
later  on,  to  give  some  account.  They  form  part  of  the  larger 
history  of  the  great  movement  which  we  know  as  "The  Eman-' 
cipation,"  a  movement  which  constituted  the  crown  and  com- 
pletion of  the  still  more  ancient  ''Reformation."  A  great 
result  often  springs  from  a  mean-looking  germ.  It  was  the 
cost  of  the  original  "  School-board  "  system,  that  led  the  over- 
burdened rate-payers  to  look  about  for  means  of  relief.  These 
were  ultimately  found  in  the  enormous  and  ill-applied  resources 
of  the  National  Church  Establishment. 

Under  the  perfect  organization  of  the  National  School  sys- 
tem, Christmas  Carol  was  able  to  take  his  place  in  the  classes 
of  whatever  school  chanced  to  be  near  him.  Thus  he  could 
equally  pursue  his  studies  when  dwelling  at  "  Ariel  Cottage  " 
with  Bertie,  or  with  his  other  friends  in  the  Triangle.  In  his 
case,  as  is  usual  now-a-days  for  the  youth  of  all  classes,  the 
scliool-life  was  combined  with  the  home-life,  both  being  uni- 
versally regarded  as  essential  to  right  education.  For  we  have 
got  rid  of  the  old  system,  under  which  children  were  in  child- 
hood relegated  to  the  care  of  illiterate  and  ill-bred  domestics, 
and  in  youth  banished  for  months  together  to  establishments 
where  their  parents  could  exercise  no  supervision  over  their 
progress  or  associations. 


BY  AND  BY.  49 

We  have  got  rid  also  of  the  system  which  recognized  and 
fixed  a  broad  distinction  between  classes.  All  now  are  taught 
in  the  same  institutions*;  the  only  differences  being  such  as  are 
rendered  needful  by  the  different  vocations  they  are  intended  to 
follow. 

Avenil,  Bertie,  and  my  grandfather,  as  well  as  their  relations 
male  and  female,  were  educated  in  these  schools.  My  father's 
premature  death  led  to  my  being  dejDrived  of  the  same  advan- 
tage, to  my  irreparable  loss.  The  adoption  of  this  system  of 
united  instruction  for  all  classes  was  accompanied  by  an  access 
of  patriotic  enthusiasm,  such  as  has  rarely  occurred  in  the  his- 
tory of  our  country.  The  class  antagonisms  and  differences 
out  of  which  had  grown  so-  many  of  our  social  diflSculties,  at 
once  fell  to  a  vanishing  point.  England's  rich  and  poor  ceased 
to  constitute  two  hostile  nations.  It  is  recorded  that  the  edu- 
cation of  the  poor  was  never  efficiently  administered  until  the 
rich  determined  to  avail  themselves  of  the  National  Schools  for 
their  own  children. 

The  mechanism  of  the  system  was  contrived  not  merely  to 
allow,  but  tp  encourage,  the  development  of  individual  charac- 
ter and  opinion  on  the  part  of  the  scholars.  While  inculcating 
methods  rather  than  results,  it  trained  each  individual  to  refer 
all  questions,  neither  to  authority  nor  to  tradition,  but  to  the 
criterion  of  his  own  carefully  cultivated  intelligence  and  moral 
sense.  To  develop,  not  repress,  the  faculty  of  thinking,  was 
now  the  object  of  education  ;  and  this  with  girls  as  well  as  boys  ! 
The  inculcation  of  opinions  based  upon  mere  authority,  and 
hearing  no  relation  to  evidence  or  utility,  was  reckoned  immoral. 

The  *'  Religious  Difficulty "  had  been  solved  by  the  substi- 
tution  of  careful    definitions   for  the   old    harassing   dogmas. 
Church  and  School,  rej^resenting  severally  the  development  of 
the  religious  and  the  intellectual  facilities,  were  able  to  un"« 
upon  the  basis  of  the  axiom,  that — 

As  in  the  region  of  Morals  the  Divine  Will  can  never  Oo 
flict  with   the  Moral  law ;    so,   in   the  region  of  Physics,   t/Ki 
Divine  Will  can  never  conflict  with  the  Natural  law. 
4 


50  BY  AND  BY. 

Wbatovor  may  liave  been  the  mental  capacity  of  primitive 
man,  it  has  been  found  that  under  its  modern  development  the 
human  mind  is  unable  to  conceive  of  universal  law  as  proceed- 
ing from'^any  source  short  of  the  Divine,  that  is,  the  supreme 
all-pervading  creative  energy  of  the  Universe.  And  we  find 
it  to  be  equally  impossible  for  us  to  regard  as  Divine  a  Avill  or 
law  that  is  variable  and  self-contradictory.  So  that,  did  we 
find  a  conflict  occurring  between  Law  and  Will,  we  should 
necessarily  and  involuntarily  determine  that  one  or  the  other 
was  not  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  Divine. 

This  axiom  or  definition  is  not  a  "dogma,"  inasmuch  as  it 
does  not  claim  to  be  true  independently  of  reason  and  evidence. 
It  is  a  necessary  basis  of  consciousness.  We  cannot  conceive 
of  the  opposite  of  it  being  true,  any  more  than  we  can  conceive 
of  Space  as  limited,  or  Time  as  terminable. 

The  close  and  affectionate  relations  maintained  between  his 
fellow-guardians,  secured  for  Criss  all  the  advantages  of  a  home 
and  society  Avhenever  Bertie's  avocation  took  him  to  a  distance. 
Whether  in  the  private  dwelling  and  working  rooms  of  the 
A^'enils  and  Wilmers,  or  in  the  common  salon  of  the  Triangle, 
Criss  was  always  warmly  received  as  a  favorite  member  of  the 
coterie.  Ofttimes  when  left  by  himself  in  the  cottage  on  the 
downs,  to  follow  his  studies  in  Bertie's  absence,  he  would  tele- 
gra])h  to  his  friends  at  the  Triangle  (for  all  the  members  have 
a  private  wire  between  the  club  and  their  country  houses,) 
telling  them  that  he  was  coming  to  spend  the  evening  with 
them,  and  asking  them  to  have  tea  on  the  roof,  when  he  would 
alight  among  them  in  his  car. 

The  extent  of  the  boy's  wealth  was  kept  a  secret  among  his 
trustees,  but  his  character  and  history  made  him  a  constant 
subject  of  interest,  and  his  friends  delighted  to  draw  him  out 
on  matters  which  excited  his  attention.  As  affording  a  glimpse 
of  his  life  at  this  time,  as  also  of  those  with  whom  he  was  con- 
nected, the  following  letter  of  the  elder.  Mrs.  Avenil  to  my 
grandmother  will  be  read  with  interest — 


BT  AND  BY.  61 

"  Criss  was  to  join  us  a  few  evenings  back  on  the  roof  of  the 
Triangle,  and  as  he  was  late,  we  looked  out  for  him.  Some  of 
us  thought  we  had  caught  sight  of  the  Ariel's  light  over  one  of 
the  poorest  parts  of  the  city,  but  it  remained  there  soflong  that 
we  concluded  we  were  mistaken.  When  a"t  length  he  dropped 
among  us,  he  said  in  reply  to  our  questionings,  that  he  had 
lingered  in  that  neighborhood  as  one  that  always  had  a  special 
attraction  for  him.  My  son  Charles  exclaimed  at  this,  and 
asked  what  he  could  want  in  the  very  worst  part  of  London. 

"  The  boy  looked  surprised  and  puzzled,  and  then  said — 

"  '  Why  ivorst  ?  what  do  you  mean  by  tvoj'st  ? ' 

"  '  I  mean,'  said  Charles,  '  that  it  is  inhabited  by  the  poorest 
and  most  vicious  classes.' 

" '  Poor,  yes  ;  but  what  is  vicious  ? '  asked  the  child. 

'"ISTow,  Mr.  Wilmer,'  said  Charles,'  'here's  a  chance  for 
you.' 

"  '  Nay,'  replied  Mr.  Wilmer,  '  surely  your  twenty-seven 
years  are  competent  to  instruct  his  ten.  Let  us  hear  your 
definition.' 

"  'I  have  not  kept  up  my  Morals  since  I  left  school,'  said 
Charles,  '  as  I  have  been  so  much  occupied  with  Mathematics ; 
but  if  I  remember  aright,  we  used  to  define  vice  ?is  a  course  of 
conduct  produced  by  a  defect  in  the  faculty  of  sympathy,  so 
that  vice  means  selfishness,  or  the  practice  of  self-indulgence 
to  the  detriment  of  others.' 

" '  If  that  be  it,  you  have  used  the  wrong  word.  Master 
Charles,  dear,'  cried  little  Criss  with  vivacity:  'for  it  is  just 
because  I  find  so  much  sympathj^,  and  therefore  so  little 
selfishness  or  vice,  among  those  poor  people,  that  I  delight  to 
drop  down  among  them.' 

"'But  you  hate  squalor  and  ugliness,  I  know,'  returned 
Charles,  '  and  admire  every  beautiful  thing  you  see,  in  building 
and  landscape.' 

"'Yes,  yes,  that  is  quite  true,'  pleaded  the  child,  'and  I  do 
Hot  know  quite  how  it  is;  but — '  and  here  his  voice  sank  and 
faltered  a  little,  'it  always  seems  to  me  that  dii-ectly  something 
living  and  human  appears,  all  my  interest  and  sense  of  beauty 


52  BY  AND  BY. 

centres  in  that.  I  never  see  ugliness  in  those  districts;  for 
I  see  poor  people  helping  each  other  in  their  struggles  for  a 
living.  I  see  poor  mothers  tending  their  own  children,  instead 
of  leaviil^  them  to  servants,  as  some  of  the  very  rich  do :  and 
poor  husbands  and  wives  nursing  each  other  in  sickness,  in- 
stead of  sending  for  a  hospital  nurse.' 

"  '  And  pray,  how  do  you  see  these  things  ? '  asked  Charles. 
*  I  hope  3'ou  don't  go  and  look  in  the  windows  ? ' 

"  '  I  don't  know  how  I  see  them,'  the  child  answered,  thought- 
fully. *  I  seem  to  myseK  sometimes,  when  I  am  passing  over  a 
dwelling,  to  he  as  well  aware  of  all  that  is  going  on  inside  as 
if  I  saw  it  with  my  bodily  eyes.  Perhaps  it  is  by  means  of 
that  same  sympathy,  the  absence  of  which,  you  say,  is  the 
cause  of  vice.' 

"Here  I  made  a  sign  to  Charles  that  he  should  not  lead  the 
child  on  to  talk  in  this  direction  :  for  we   have   often  observed 
in  him   symptoms  of  a  belief    that  he    possesses    some   occult 
faculty,  which  makes  him  different  in  kind  from  other  folk.     A 
notion  of  this  kind  is  often  but  a  germ  of  insanity,  and  requires 
careful   management  to   eradicate  it,  the  most  essential   point 
being    to    suppl}'  plenty   of  occupation    in    another   direction, 
and  allow  it  to  die  of  inanition  by  never  encouraging  or  even 
heeding  it.     The  sympathetic  faculty  exists  in  him  to  an  ex- 
tent altogether  extraoi'dinary,  and  unless  its  growth  be  judi- 
ciously repressed,  and  kept  proportionate  to  other  sides  of  his 
nature,  we  shall  have  reason   to  be  anxious  about  the  excesses 
to  which  it  will  carry  him  when  he  comes  into  the  very  consi- 
derable fortune  which  I  understand  will  be  his.     Bertie  Great- 
head   insists  on   his   being  kept  in  ignorance  of  his  prospects 
while  his  education    is  going  on.     Xo    doubt   it  would  injure 
the  character  of  any  ordinary  youth  to  be  brought  up  to  regard 
himself  as  independent  of  parents  or  guardians,  for  such  sense 
of  dependence  plays   an   important  part  in  the  develof)ment  of 
our  best  feelings.     But  Crissy  is  not   aS   other  children.     The 
affections  are  already  too  predominant  in  him.     He  is  capable 
of  sacrificing  himself  to  any  extent.     Their  development  needs 
precisely  such  a  check  as  would  be  given  by  the  knowledge  of 


BY  AND  BT.  53 

his  own  independence.  It  would  give  liim  a  more  practical 
turn.  Admirably  as  he  has  learnt  the  theoiy  and  practice  of 
aeronautics,  there  is  in  him  far  too  great  a  predominance  of  the 
contemplative  and  subjective  element.  It  is  true  that,  when 
excited  and  eager  in  his  talk,  his  wonderful  eyes  shine  out 
upon  his  audience  with  startling  brilliancy  and  suggestiveness ; 
but  when  in  repose,  his  gaze  is  manifestly  turned  inwards,  as 
if  there  lay  the  real  absorbing  topic  of  his  soul ;  and  he  has  a 
singular  passion  for  being  alone,  a  passion  which  grows  upon 
him.  Already  his  favorite  reading  is,  not  in  the  literature  of 
our  own  day,  but  in  such  ancient  writings  as  the  Hebrew 
Psalms,  and  the  Gospels,  and  the  curious  old  English  poem 
called  'Ii*  Memoriam.'  We  w.ho  have  learnt  to  discern  the 
real  significance  of  the  Beautiful  Life,  cannot  but  feel  uneasy 
at  the  proclivity  thus  shown  towards  sentimental  contemplation 
by  one  so  endowed  and  so  young.  All  are  not  eagles  to  gaze 
with  impunity  upon  the  sun.  I  know  there  are  some  points 
upiMi  which  you  and  I  do  not  coincide,  but  I  shall  be  glad  to 
know  how  jonv  motherly  heart  judges  this  dear  child  and  his 
bringing  uj)." 

The  district  to  which  reference  was  made  in  the  conversation 
of  which  the  foregoing  letter  records  the  commencement,  is 
mainly  inhabited  by  that  large  class  of  operatives,  who  are  dis- 
qualified for  being  co-operatives.  As  all  my  home  readers  must 
be  aware,  the  great  mechanical  trades  and  industries  of  the 
country  are  in  the  hands  of  large  bodies  of  artisans,  male  or 
female,  who  are  associated  together  for  their  own  exclusive  mu- 
tual benefit,  except  in  the  cases  in  which  they  are  allied  witli 
outside  capitalists.  Much  of  the  land  is  similarly  held ;  and 
tlR'  workers  divide  among  themselves  all  the  profit  of  their 
work,  employing  as  managers  and  secretaries,  men  or  women,  ot 
high  education  and  social  position,  whom  they  pay  liberally. 
The  members  of  these  associations  and  their  families  are  all  well 
to  do,  and  run  little  risk  of  poverty  from  lack  of  work,  while 
they  have  reduced  the  risk  from  natural  causes  to  a  mininuim. 
For  not  merely  liave   the  members  of  the  various  trades,  by 


54  BY  AXD  BY. 

breeding  in  and  in  among  themselves,  acquired  an  hereditary 
aptitude  for  their  work,  but  they  are  careful  to  obtain  the  finest 
specimens  of  women  to  be  the  mothers  of  their  children,  so 
that  incapacity,  mental  or  physical,  is  scarcely  known  among 
them.  There  is  thus  no  longer  a  perpetual  drafting  .off  from 
these  classes  of  the  best  looking  girls  to  recruit  the  ranks  of 
wealthy  vice  and  dissipation,  and  no  leaving  to  the  working 
man  only  the  poorest  types  of  womanhood  from  which  to  choose 
his  wife.  It  is  therefore  outside  of  the  ranks  of  the  co-opera- 
tive, that  the  pinch  of  pauperism  is  found.  To  be  qualified  for 
membership,  a  man  or  woman  must  be  up  to  a  certain  working 
power.  Those  who  are  above  this  standard  are  at  liberty  to 
remain  aloof  and  work  independently,  making  if  j;hey  can, 
larger  wages  than  are  to  be  got  in  the  association,  but  at  their 
own  risk  in  case  of  illness  or  failure  through^  other  causes. 
Owing  to  the  advantages  in  the  shape  of  capital  and  machinery 
at  the  command  of  the  associations,  few  do  this  except  in  those 
higher  branches  of  art-labor,  where  individual  genius  finds 
scope  for  its  exercise.  The  great  bulk  of  the  outsiders  are  ex- 
cluded by  reason  of  their  inability  to  come  up  to  the  mark  re- 
quired, as  regards  either  the  quality  or  the  quantity  of  their 
work. 

I  mention  this  as  I  do  not  wish  to  appear  to  claim  for  our 
civilization  that  it  has  already  attained  a  condition  so  perfect 
as  to  be  incompatible  with  the  evil  of  pauperism.  The  princi- 
ple followed  by  our  artisan  classes  is  still  the  principle  inaugu- 
rated and  insisted  on  by  the  church  in  bygone  ages.  As  the 
church  utterly  disregarded  human  individuality  in  respect  of 
the  nature  and  operations  of  the  mind,  so  the  co-operative  labor 
associations  disregard  it  in  respect  of  man's  powers  of  physical 
work.  The  church  doomed  its  heretics  to  dire  condemnation 
here  or  hereafter.  The  co-operatives  doom  all  artisans  who  are 
unable  to  comply  with  their  arbitrary  standard,  to  the  dire 
pangs  of  poverty.  The  progress  of  enlightenment,  by  removing 
the  shackles  placed  by  the  church  upon  thought,  has  emancipa- 
ted mind  from  its  slavery.  A  further  progress  will  similarly 
enlarge  the  conditions  of  co-operative  labor  until  all  classes  of 


BY  AND    BY.  55 

workers  can  be  included  without  the  sacrifice  of  individual 
differences.  The  old  restricted  church  maintained  its  authority 
by  force.  The  old  trades-unions,  adopting  the  ecclesiastical 
method,  also  used  force.  Like  the  clum-h,  too,  they  rejected 
the  principle  of  nationality,  and  set  up  tiioir  caste  against  the 
state.  These  things  are  not  so  now.  Individualism,  or  the 
rights  of  the  man,  had  to  struggle  long  and  hard  against  the 
fanaticism  of  organization,  ecclesiastical  or  communistic.  The 
helpless  Celt  had  succumbed  to  the  tyranny  for  ever,  but  for 
the  indomitable  energy  of  the  self-reliant  Anglo-Saxon,  who 
taught  him  what  freedom  meant.  Such  advance  have  we  made. 
But  the  end  is  not  yet.  The  fold  is  not  yet  capacious  enough 
to  contain  all  the  sheep.  But  time  will  accomplish  even  this. 
The  curious  part  of  it  is  that  the  artisans,  even  while  following 
the  old  ecclesiastical  principle  in  this  respect,  profess  the 
greatest  hatred  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  regime.  Such  is  the 
vitality  of  the  systeni  which  dates  from  old-  Eome  : — Bome  that 
was  for  ever  forcing  its  law  upon  men  whether  they  would  or 
not. 

. «  ».»  » 


CHAPTEE  IX. 


In-  their  anxiety  to  do  the  very  best  for  their  charge,  the 
scientific  Avenils  and  the  festhetic  Wilmers  held  many  a  con- 
sidtation  with  Bertie  Greathead.  Under  the  term  aesthetic  I 
include  the  whole  range  of  subjects  which  appeal  to  the  emo- 
tions. It  was  to  my  grandmother's  strong  religious  feeling 
that  Mrs.  Avenil  alluded  in  the  closing  sentence  of  her  letter. 
The  family  temperament,  which  in  her  and  in  my  mother  took 
the  form  of  devotion,  took  in  my  father  the  poetic — and  in  my- 
self the  art — direction.  My  father  had  married  his  cousin,  and 
after  his  death,  which  occurred  in  my  childhood,  my  mother, 
under  the  influence  of  my  grandmother,  abandoned  herself 
utterly  to  the  sway  of  their  dominant  sentiments.     Tliey  with- 


56  BY  AND  BY. 

drew  altogether  from  their  old  associations,  and  huried  them- 
selves and  me  in  the  dwindling  hut  tenacious  sect  of  religion- 
ists, who,  as  representing  the  cliurcli  prior  to  the  Emancipation, 
assume  to  themselves  the  title  of  The  Remnant.  This,  however, 
came  after  the  time  with  which  we  are  now  concerned. 

One  day  the  conversation  ahout  Criss  was  commenced  hy 
Bertie  referring  to  the  hoy's  talk  with  his  schoolfellows  about 
the  things  he  was  in  the  habit  of  seeing  and  hearing  when  aloft 
in  his  car.  Bertie  confessed  himself  unable  to  determine 
whether  his  utterances  respecting  another  world  of  intelligent 
beings  proceeded  from  any  fixed  or  definite  conviction,  but 
many  of  his  schooKellows  thought  that  he  believed  in  something 
akin  to  the  docti-ine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  and  held 
the  ujjper  air  to  be  inhabited  by  angels,  who  met  and  conversed 
with  him. 

"Does  he  think  that  he  finds  albumen  and  life-plasm  up 
there  ?  "  asked  the  younger  Avenil,  with  a  laugh. 

"  I  understand  that  he  calls  them  angels,  but  does  not  pro- 
fess to  know  what  they  are  made  of,"  said  Bertie,  dril}^  "He 
has  sufficient  scientific  comprehension  to  avoid  assuming  a  dis- 
tinction in  kind  between  the  entities  of  matter  and  spirit.  It 
was  to  a  conversation  he  had  with  some  of  his  schoolfellows  on 
this  point  that  I  was  about  to  refer  in  disproof  of  Mr.  Avenil's 
notion  of  his  unpractical  character." 

"  Surely  the  other  boys  ridicule  him  when  he  speaks  to  them 
of  such  things  ?  " 

"  Far  from  it,"  replied  Bertie.  "  They  have  too  much  rever- 
ence for  the  earnestness  and  simplicity  of  his  character  to  let 
any  irony  appear.  The  only  time  he  ever  manifested  im- 
patience was  at  first,  when  they  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  he  took  for  realities  the  products  of  his  own  imagination. 
On  this  occasion  he  told  them  tliut  the  beings  of  whom  he 
spoke  were  as  real  to  him  as  his  own  schoolfellows.  They  had 
been  tending  some  pet  animals,  which  Criss  allowed  some  of  his 
schoolfellows  to  keep  in  the  cottage  garden.  One  of  the  boys 
had  said  that  it  would  be  a  very  dull  and  stupid  world  if  all  the 
living  creatures  had  developed  into  human  beings.     And  an- 


BY  AND  BY.  67 

otlier  said  it  would  be  duller  still  if  all  the  human  beings  were 
grown-up  men  and  women,  without  any  boys  or  girls.  And  a 
third  said  that  people  used  to  fancy  one  yet  more  dull  than 
that,  for  they  imagined  heaven  as  peopled  with  beings  who 
M'ere  all  alike,  and  had  no  difference  even  of  sex.  Then  the 
first  speaker  turned  suddenly  to  Ci'iss,  and  exclaimed, — 

" '  Carol  can  tell  us  all  about  it.  Carol,  are  there  any  ani- 
mals in  heaven  ? ' 

"'You  know  our  bargain,'  was  his  reply.  'If  you  want  me 
to  tell  you  about  the  Above,  you  must  first  sing  my  favorite 
song  for  me.' 

" '  Yes  !  yes  !  the  balloon  song !  the  balloon  song  ! '  cried  a 
number  of  little  ones,  hastening  to  range  themselves  before 
him,  as  he  seated  himself  on  a  grass-covered  mound.  And  then 
the  little  voices  burst  with  tremendous  energy  into  the  old  nur- 
sery rhyme,  which  dates  from  the  days  when  men  could  mount 
into  the  air  only  by  tying  themselves  to  a  huge  bag  of  gas.* 

*lt  may  not  be  worth  preserving  for  its  own  sake — what  nursery 
rhyme  is?  But  time  is  only  too  ready  to  drop  things  into  oblivion ;  so 
here  it  is. 

Balloon!    Balloon!    Balloon! 

Go  up  and  hunt  the  sky, 
Then  come  and  tell  us  soon 

What  you  have  found  on  high. 

So  many  things  we  want  to  know, 

We  cannot  see  down  here: 
Where  hides  the  sun  when  day  is  done, 

Where  goes  the  dried-up  tear. 
And  when  our  laughter  dies  away, 
Who  stores  it  up  for  future  day. 

Balloon !    Balloon !    Balloon ! 
Tell  us  of  what  the  stars  are  made, 

What  are  their  children  like? 
We're  always  told  they're  good  as  gold, 

And  never  sulk  or  strike. 
But  ar'n't  they  often  giddy  found, 
With  always  rolling  round  and  round? 


58  J5y  AND  BY. 

'•  'Now  what  is  it  you  want  to  know  ?  '  lie  asked,  when  they 
had  finished. 

"  '  K  there  are  any  animals  in  heaven.' 

" '  Certainly  there  are/  he  replied,  with  the  utmost  serious- 
ness. 'One  of  the  principal  delights  of  the  angels  is  in  ten- 
derly tending  them.  They  regard  them  as  incipient  intel- 
ligences of  higher  natures,  and  only  a  few  steps  below  their 
own  children.' 

"'And  are  there  any  baby  angels?'  inquired  a  little  girl. 
She  was  sister  of  the  lad  who  had  spoken  first,  and  listened 
with  awe  to  his  account  of  the  Above. 

"  '  Certainly,'  he  said ;  '  why  not  ?  Would  not  this  be  a  very 
poor  world  were  there  nothing  but  grown  men  and  women  in 
it,  no  tiresome  children,  no  beautiful  birds,  no  noble  horses,  no 
sleek  cats,  no  dear,  affectionate  dogs  ?  Ah,  they  are  not  worse 
off  up  there  than  we  are  down  here,  you  may  be  sure.' 

"  One  of  the  older  boys  here  asked  him  whether  the  beings 
he  spoke  of  possess  any  specific  gravity,  or  are  altogether  inde- 
pendent of  graviiation. 

Balloon!    Balloon!    Balloon! 
What  makes  the  thunder  peal? 

Where  are  the  old  gods  gone  ? 
We  like  to  think  'tis  they  who  drink 

The  clouds  wlien  rain  is  done. 
But  don't  you  often  quake  with  fright 
So  far  from  earth  to  be  at  night  ? 

Balloon !    Balloon !    Balloon ! 
We  know  what  you  have  got  to  say, 

You've  told  us  oft  before: 
That  if  would  we  the  old  gods  see, 

We  must  our  best  adore : 
And  shines  the  sun,  perpetual  day, 
'Tis  only  we  who  turn  away. 

Balloon !    Balloon !    Balloon 

Go  up  and  hunt  the  sky ; 
Then  come  and  tell  us  soon 

What  you  have  found  on  high. 


BY  ANT)  BY.  69 

"  He  replied  that  doubtless  tliey  vary  from  us  in  density  and 
weight,  as  they  live  at  so  different  an  elevation  in  the  atmos- 
phere ;  and  that  in  some  respects  they  hold  the  same  position 
towards  us  as  fishes  of  the  sea,  inasmuch  as  they  do  not  require, 
a  solid  element  to  rest  upon,  and  can  sustain  themselves  at 
different  elevations.  They  inhabit  mainly,  he  said,  the  junc- 
tion of  the  atmosphere  with  space,  and  breathe  the  pure  ether 
of  the  latter ;  but  are  endowed  with  an  apparatus  whereby  thoy 
can  secrete  the  fluid  necessary  for  breathing  when  they  wish  to 
descend  into  the  atmosphere.  He  delighted,  he  said,  to  note 
the  resemblances  between  things  there  and  here. 

"  One  of  the  lads  said  he  supposed  that  every  one  was  much 
more  perfect  up  there  than  in  this  world.     To  this  Criss  said : 

"  '1  do  not  understand.  What  do  you  mean  by  more  per- 
fect ?     All  God's  worlds  must  be  perfect.' 

"  '  But  not  the  people  in  them  ? '  suggested  one. 
"'Hush,  hush,'  exclaimed  Criss,  'we  cannot  call  anything 
imperfect  unless  we  know  the  end  it  was  designed  to  fulfil,  and 
that  it  falls  short  of  fulfilling  that  end.' 

"  '  He  talks  as  if  they  were  all  real  for  him,'  said  another, 
'  Come,  Carol,  tell  us,  do  you  ever  use  the  clouds  as  a  bed,  and 
go  to  sleep  and  dream  when  you  are  lying  on  them  ?' 

"  '  Oh,  yes,  often  and  often,'  he  returned  ;  '  but  these  things 
are  as  real  for  me  as  you  all  are.  Call  them  what  yoy  will, 
they  are  forces  external  to  myself,  and  which  make  me  con- 
scious of  their  existence  by  operating  upon  my  senses  just  as 
you  yourselves  do.  Please  do  not  call  their  existence  into 
question.  Fancy  my  having  to  try  hard  to  persuade  them  of 
the  existence  of  j^ou  my  schoolfellows  !  It  would  seem  just  as 
absurd  to  me  ;  and  the}-  have  too  much  sense  to  require  it. 
Surely  it  is  but  a  barren,  superfluous  sort  of  talk  that  consists 
in  our  questioning  each  other's  existence.  We,  too,  who  have 
the  microscope,  telescope,  spectroscope,  and  such  things,  to  make 
perpetual  revelations  to  us  of  worlds  otherwise  invisible  !  If  it 
seems  odd  to  you  that  I  should  have  experiences  which  you 
have  not,  you  should  remember  that  you  have  experiences 
which  I  have  not.     The  difference  between  us  in  this  matter  is 


^0  J5r  AND  BY. 

only  such  as  exists  between  a  man  who  has  an  ear  for  music 
and  one  who  has  none,  or  one  who  has  a  keen  eye  for  colors  and 
one  who  is  color-blind.     It  is  all  a  question  of  sensitiveness.'  " 

Here  old  Mrs.  Wilmer  interrupted  Bertie's  narration  to  re- 
mark that  in  saying  this  the  boy  did  not  do  himself  justice. 
He  should  have  adduced  the  case  of  his  own  Israelitish  ancestors 
as  a  proof  that  some  races  are  endowed  with  a  vividness  of 
spiritual  perception  which  others  are  incapable  of  compre- 
hending. 

"  I  myself  heard  him,"  said  my  father,  joining  in  the  conver- 
sation, "  soon  after  the  trip  he  made  with  us  to  the  sea-side, 
describing  to  a  group  of  little  children  some  of  the  games  and 
recreations  with  which,  he  said,  the  angels  amuse  their  leisure 
hours.  You  would  have  thought  he  was  actually  gazing  upon 
the  scenery  of  the  ideal  world,  as  he  described  the  particulars, 
so  well  did  he  make  his  audience  realize  it  too.  Had  I  been  a 
painter  I  could  have  drawn  a  picture  from  his  description,  so 
vivid  and  graphic  was  it.  There  were  rows  above  rows  of 
angelic  beings,  attired  in  colors  undreamt  of  by  our  rainbows, 
ranged  along  the  sides  of  tall  cliffs  which,  in  the  form  of  a  vast 
amphitheatre,  overhung  an  expanse  of  ether  which  lay  at  their 
feet,  and  stretched  out  and  melted  away  in  the  distance  like  an 
illimitable  sea.  I  thought  at  first  he  was  going  to  describe 
something  like  the  scene  at  Lord's  at  one  of  the  cricket-contests 
between  our  ancient  national  schools  of  Harrow  and  Eton, 
where  the  rows  upon  rows  of  exquisitely-dressed  women  ranged 
round  the  ground,  resemble  a  circular  embankment  of  beautiful 
flowers.  But  he  went  on  to  describe  this  expanse  as  being  of 
various  hues,  streaked  in  some  parts  with  tints  of  tender  blue, 
and  ruffled  as  if  with  a  light  breeze,  and  in  others  white  and 
glassy,  or  of  a  delicate  green,  and  the  whole  scene  wondrously 
beautiful  even  to  the  eyes  of  the  angelic  multitude.  But  it  was 
not  to  gaze  on  a  scene  of  still  life  that  the  celestial  hosts  were 
thus  assembled.  Some  of  the  younger  angels  had  been  busying 
themselves  in  fabricating  a  number  of  vessels  of  various  char- 
acters and  forms,  and  they  and  their  friends  had  met  to  witness 
a  contest  of  speed  between  them,     ^pme  of  those  vessels  con- 


BY  AND  BY.  61 

tained  ingeniously-devised  machinery  concealed  within  them. 
Others  were  provided  with  wide-expanding  wings  to  catch  the 
pulsations  of  the  surrounding  ether.  And  others  were  impelled 
by  the  young  angels  themselves  ranged  in  ranks  upon  them, 
and  impelling  them  hy  their  own  physical  strength.  And  now 
and  then  during  the  race  would  be  seen  some  little  craft  with- 
out visible  means  of  propulsion,  making  such  rapid  way  as  to 
outstrip  all  competitors;  and  then  a  shout  would  arise,  as  the 
spectators  surmised  that  something  unfair  was  being  done  ;  and 
then  from  beneath  the  keel  which  was  hidden  in  the  element, 
the  owner  would  em'erge,  shaking  the  etherial  particles  from 
his  wings,  and  making  the  welkin  ripple  to  his  merry  laughter, 
for  such  method  of  propulsion  was  not  within  the  conditions  of 
the  contest.  I  could  have  gazed  long  upon  the  enchanting 
scene,  as  he  raised  it  before  me  ;  but  the  bright  and  happy 
crowds  of  the  celestial  popidation,  and  the  fairy  forms  darting 
over  the  luminous  expanse,  were  in  a  moment  all  dispelled ;  for 
one  of  the  youngsters  suddenly  broke  the  rapt"  silence  with 
which  we  had  been  listening,  by  clapping  his  hands  and  ex- 
claiming, '  I  know  !  Yachts  ! '  And  after  this  Criss  would  not 
utter  a  syllable  further." 

It  was  with  considerable  impatience  that  the  Avenils  had 
listened  to  these  recitals  of  Bertie  and  Wilmer.  AVhen  they 
were  concluded,  Mr.  Avenil  said  to  my  father — 

"  We  must  turn  him  over  to  you,  Wilmer,  to  make  a  poet  of 
him.  He  will  grow  up  a  dreamy  and  unpractical  man,  and 
utterly  unable  to  turn  his  fortune  to  good  account." 

"  I  think,"  pleaded  Bertie,  "  the  skill  he  has  acquired  as  an 
aerialist,  indicates  a  sufficiently  practical  turn  for  all  useful 
purposes." 

"  You  aeronauts,"  returned  Mr.  Avenil,  "  are  too  apt  to  judge 
the  affairs  of  earth  by  those  of  the  air.  You  know  little  of 
anything  more  substantial  than  the  currents  of  wind  and  differ- 
ences of  atmospheric  density  and  temperatures.  Yours  is  a 
pursuit  that  generates  a  disposition  to  drift  rather  than  to  act." 

Bertie  laughed  heartily  at  the  idea  of  depreciating  his  voca- 


62  BY  AND  BY. 

tion  upon  moral  grounds  ;  aud, remarked  tliat  those  who  know 
what  it  is  to  dri\'e  an  acromotive  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  and 
iifty  miles  or  more  an  hour,  through  mist  and  darkness  and 
tempest,  eh^aving  the  ice-cloud,  and  dodging  the  lightning, 
would  hardly  recognize  the  criticism  as  founded  in  justice.  He 
added,  that  he,  too,  should  he  glad  to  see  the  boy  in  training 
for  some  definite  career. 

"  A  rich  man,"  remarked  Mr.  Avenil,  "  ought  to  find  his  oc- 
cupation in  the  em2_)loyment  of  his  wealth.  An  income  derived 
from  investments,  which  require  no  care  on  the  part  of  the 
owner,  tends  to  make  a  man  a  mere  desultory  vagabond,  unless 
he  have  some  strong  bias  of  his  own  to  direct  him.  I  should 
like  to  see  young  Carol,  as  the  projirietor  of  a  large  landed 
estate,  devoting  his  money  to  the  improvement  of  agriculture,* 
by  the  application  of  science  in  all  its  available  branches." 

"  You  read  Poet  in  his  every  word  and  expression,"  said 
Wilmer,  ''  and  would  turn  the  Poet  into  a  Farmer !  " 

"  He  certainly  is  an  enthusiast,"  said  the  younger  Avenil, 
"  but  his  enthusiasm  takes  anything  but  an  analytic  turn.  His 
marvellous  aj)titude  for  languages,  coupled  with  his  locomotive 
propensities,  convinces  me  that  he  will  find  his  chief  engross- 
ments among  men  rather  than  among  things." 

There  was  good  ground  for  Charles's  remark.  Criss  had 
availed  himself  of  the  advantages  afforded  in  the  National 
Schools,  to  attain  a  facility  of  expression  in  many  languages, 
which  enabled  him  to  converse  freely  with  the  nations  of  the 
various  countries  he  had  visited  with  Bertie ;  particularly  the 
Arabic,  which,  for  his  origin's  sake,  Bertie  had  urged  upon  him. 
Bertie  said  that  the  boy  seemed  to  acquire  them  almost  by 
sheer  force  of  sympathy.  It  was  a  heart — not  a  head — faculty. 
The  possession  of  it  would  be  sure  to  encourage  his  love  of 
travel. 

My  father  suggested  that  it   was  only  part  of   the  larger 
faculty  of  expression.     The  boy  possessed  language  and  insight. 
Travel  would  give  him  information  and  ideas.     He  ought  then 
to  turn  his  leisure  to  account  as  an  author. 
The  elder  Avenil  demurred  to  this. 


BY  AND  BY.  63 

"  The  world  and  science,"  he  said,  "  are  the  same  everywhere  ; 
so  that  time  sjent  in  travel  is  for  the  most  part  time  wasted. 
Accustom  him  to  regard  a  piece  of  land  as  his  own, — no  matter 
whether  he  cultivates  it  or  builds  a  town  upon  it, — and  he  will 
soon  learn  to  love  it,  and  devote  himself  to  its  improvement." 

"  The  hoy  is  a  bird — a  bird  of  passage  ;  and  you  would  chain 
him  to  a  clod  !  "  exclaimed  Bertie. 

"  The  boy  is  an  Israelite  and  a  poet,  and  may  be  a  prophet," 
said  my  grandmother,  of  hieropathic  tendencies.  "You  are  all 
thinking  of  the  material,  and  forgetting  the  spiritual.  Put 
,  him,  with  all  his  endowments  of  soul  and  body,  into  the  land 
of  his  forefathers,  and  who  knows  but  that  he  may  successfully 
devote  himself  to  reviving  the  ancient  glories  of  his  race,  so 
long  overshadowed  by  its  lust  for  gold.  Though  restored  to  the 
Holy  Land,  Israel  has  yet  to  be  restored  to  the  Divine  favor. 
You  may  deem  me  superstitious,  but  there  is  something  in  his 
connection  with  those  jewels,  as  well  as  in  himself,  that  to  me 
bespeaks  him  of  royal  destiny.  You  were  quite  right  to  make 
him  learn  Arabic,  Bertie." 

They  were  all  struck  by  this  remark,  coming  as  it  did  from 
one  who  dwelt  apart  from  the  world  of  the  present,  in  a  region 
of  exalted  sentiment,  absorbed  in  theological  studies,  and 
making  her  chief  companions  the  Sacred  books  of  the  ancient 
religions.  Unobservant,  however,  and  indifferent,  as  she  was 
in  regard  to  things  around  her,  there  was  one  portion  of  the 
earth  that  was  ever  present  to  her  mind,  with  an  overwhelming 
interest.  It  was  Judjea,  the  ever  memorable  Hobj  Land.  In 
much  the  same  way,  as  the  religious  system  once  known  as 
Romanism  was  long  kept  alive  by  its  offspring  and  supplanter 
Protestantism,  so  was  Judaism  kept  alive  by  Christianity  long 
after  it  would  otherwise  have  perished  by  natural  decay. 

The  prophecies  of  the  ancient  Jewish  patriot  poets  respect- 
ing the  future  resuscitation  of  their  country's  greatness  had 
taken  deep  hold  of  old  Mrs.  Wilmer's  mind,  and  she  had 
viewed  with  exultation  the  return  of  the  Jews  to  Palestine, 
and  the  vast  influx  of  wealth  and  power  with  them  into  that 
country,  under  the  commercial  influences  of  the  Suez  Canal, 


C)4  liT  AND  BY. 

the  Euphrates  railroads,  and  the  constitution  of  the  Empire  of 
Soudan  or  Central  Africa. 

The  whole  of  the  circumstances  attending  the  restoration 
were  unusual.  The  financial  embarrassments  of  the  decayed 
Moslem  Empire  had  led  to  the  sale  of  Palestine  to  a  company 
of  Jewish  capitalists.  The  purchasers  had  little  difficulty  in 
acting  ujion  the  patriotism  and  commercial  eagerness  of  their 
.people,  and  inducing  large  numbers  of  wealthy  houses  to 
migrate  thither,  or  at  least  to  establish  branch  houses  in  the 
capital.  The  barren  places  in  the  surrounding  districts  were 
replenished  with  rich  earth  brought  by  sea  from  the  Egyptian 
Delta,  or  the  Tufa  beds  of  Vesuvius  and  Etna,  and  liberally 
spread  on  the  terraced  hills  of  the  new  Jerusalem ;  and  the 
whole  desert  tract  of  the  lower  Jordan  and  Dead  Sea  was 
filled  with  water  up  to  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
made  navigable,  by  a  canal  cut  through  the  sandy  wilderness 
from  El  Arish. 

The  Ancient  Court  of  the  Sanhedrim  was  re-established,  but 
on  a  purely  secular  basis,  as  the  nature  of  the  times  dictated. 
By  this  were  the  home  affairs  of  the  country  regulated ;  its 
foreign  relations  being  controlled  by  a  committee  of  the  Jeru- 
salem Stock-Exchange,  a  puissant  institution  in  these  days  of 
the  almost  universal  supremacy  of  wealth. 

Powerful  and  prosperous  as  the  Jewish  community  in  Pales- 
tine had  become,  it  wanted  yet  one  thing  to  complete  its  ambi- 
tion. The  adjoining  countries  of  Arabia  and  Syria  were  willing 
to  withdraw  altogether  from  their  allegiance  to  the  Sultan,  and 
unite  as  one  people  with  the  Jews,  but  they  could  not  abandon 
their  allegiance  to  the  principle  of  personal  government.  The 
expulsion  of  the  Sublime  Porte  from  Constantinoi:)le,  and  its 
withdrawal  from  the  Golden  Gate  of  the  Holy  City,  had 
utterly  destroyed  its  prestige  with  these  populations.  But  these 
events  Avere  themselves  the  result  of  causes  which  are  easily 
traceable  to  a  period  so  far  baclc  as  the  twentieth  or  even  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  was  then,  that  the  vivacious,  brilliant, 
and  long  dominant  Celtic  race  had  finally  succumbed  to  patient, 
thorough,   and  conscientious  Teuton.      It  was  then  that  the 


BY   AND  BY.  65 

silent,  studious  German,  backed  by  the  moral  force  of  our  own 
Anglo-Saxons  at  home  and  in  North  America,  laid  the  first 
round  of  the  political  edifice  of  that  modern  civilization,  whose 
subsequent  stages  have  included  the  absorption  by  Germany  of 
Austria  proj^er  ;  the  reconstitution  of  the  Sclavonic  confederacy, 
and  consequent  reduction  of  Russia  within  moderate  dimensions 
by  the  withdrawal  of  her  southern  populations  ;  the  re-estab- 
lishment of  the  "Holy  Roman  Empire,"  with  Hungary  as  a 
royal  appanage,  in  its  own  ancient  capital  on  the  Bosphorus ; 
and  the  waning  of  the  Turkish  dominion,  through  its  inability 
to  retain  its  hold  upon  its  border  provinces. 

My  elder  readers,  who  have  all  history,  ancient  and  modern, 
at  their  finger-ends,  must  forgive  the  recapitulation  of  these 
details  as  not  irrelevant  to  our  story. 

There  was  no  king  in  Israel ;  and  a  king  of  Israel  was  the 
"  roc's  egg  "  of  my  grandmother's  imagination.  In  such  a 
potentate  she  saw  the  sole  possible  supplanter  of  the  Grand 
Turk,  whom  she  regarded  as  the  Anti-Christ,  the  sole  symbol 
of  empire  powerful  enough  to  draw  the  peoples  surrounding  her 
beloved  Jerusalem  under  the  shelter  of  its  wings.  And  it  is 
not  a  little  remarkable,  that  what  with  her  was  purely  a 
religious  sentiment,  had  become,  for  astute  politicians,  a  master- 
key  to  the  solution  of  the  principal  remaining  Eastern  Question. 
As  I  have  already  stated,  the  popidations  of  those  countries  re- 
tain all  their  ancient  immemorial  attachment  to  the  personal 
principle  both  in  religion  and  politics.  They  have  not  followed 
the  northern  races  in  their  recognition  of  abstract  right  and 
wrong  apart  from  the  will  of  an  individual.  With  us,  wherever  ' 
an  individual  is  invested  with  power,  it  is  for  the  sake  of  con- 
centrating vigor  and  responsibility  in  a  single  executive  ;  our- 
selves, the  people,  being  the  beneficiaries  and  judges.  With 
the  semi-Semitic  races,  on  the  contrary,  the  ruler  is  the  master, 
not  the  servant,  of  the  people.  We  have  long  passed  the  stage 
in  which  people  held  strong  convictions  respecting  mere  forms 
of  government.  Together  with  other  dogmas  we  have  got  rid 
of  the  dogma  of  monarchy  and  the  dogma  of  republicanism. 
Whatever  form  of  government  best  combines  the  liberty  of  the 
5 


66  ST  AXD  BY. 

individual  with  the  general  security  for  any  people,  is  approve! 
of  by  us.  As  the  genius  of  races  and  peoples  varies,  so  will 
these  forms  vary.  The  detail  must  be  a  matter  of  experitmce 
for  all,  not  of  dogma  for  any. 

AVe  have,  thus,  learnt  to  recognize  the  sanctity  of  Individu- 
ality in  Races,  as  well  as  in  persons.  And  there  was  no  incon- 
sistency in  the  statesmen  of  the  great  and  highly-civilized 
republics  of  Europe,  America,  and  Australia  desiring  to  see  a 
monarchy  established  in  the  East,  having  its  throne  in  Jerusa- 
lem. The  fact  that  such  a  result  was  desired  by  the  leading 
Jews  themselves,  who  were  on  the  spot,  was  deemed  a  very 
strong  argument  in  its  favor ;  for,  trained  as  they  had  mostly 
been,  in  our  free  communities  and  institutions,  they  were 
naturally  favorable  to  a  continuance  of  the  state  of  things  under 
which  they  had  flourished,  and  grown  rich  enough  to  re-acquire 
the  land  of  their  forefathers,  and  raise  it  to  such  an  eminence 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth  as  it  had  never  before  attained 
or  imagined — an  eminence  based  on  material  wealth.  Without 
a  king,  however,  they  were  unable  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
readiness  of  the  populations  inhabiting  the  regions  extending 
southwards  from  the  Caspian  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the 
Eed  Sea,  to  make  one  nation  with  them ;  for  those  populations 
were  essentially  and  intensely  anti-democratic.  With  a  king, 
this  object  so  desirable  to  us  as  well  as  to  them,  would  at  once 
have  been  accomplished ;  and  we  should  have  had  a  strong  and 
friendly  power  to  guard  our  main  connections  with  our  allies  in 
India  and  Japan,  and  our  dependencies  in  China,  on  the  one 
side ;  and  on  the  other,  to  keep  in  order  the  restless  and  still 
semi-barbarous  empire  of  Central  Africa. 

So  they  were  all  struck  by  INIrs.  Wilmer's  remark.  But  it 
Avas  not  in  the  same  way  that  they  were  struck  by  it.  To  Ber- 
tie it  was  simply  preposterous. 

'•  My  little  Criss  a  king  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  I  am  sure  that 
it  is  no  kingdom  of  this  world  that  he  would  care  to  have,  any 
more  than  a  farm.     His  heart  is  above  the  clouds." 

"  He  cannot  spend  his  money  there,"  said  Mr.  Avenil. 

"  By  the  way,  have  you  ever,  Mr.  Greathead,  taken  him  to 
the  Holy  Land  in  any  of  your  voyages  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Wilmer. 


BY  AND  BY.  67 

"  Once  only/'  returned  Bertie,  and  then  I  was  so  alarmed  at 
tlie  attention  his  looks  attracted,  and  also  at  meeting  the 
diamond  merchant,  that  I  hurried  away  without  completing 
the  enquiries  I  was  mahing  ahout  his  family.  I  hardly  know 
why,  hilt  I  have  a  suspicion  that  that  merchant  knew  more 
ahout  the  real  history  of  those  jewels  than  he  was  willing  to 
tell  us,  and  I  thought  it  best  to  leave  well  alone.  Did  I  ever 
tell  you  that  I  have  seen  them  since  we  parted  with  them  ?  " 
"Indeed!" 

"  It  was  on  the  occasion  of  my  going  to  Bornou,  the  capital 
of  Central  Africa,  on  a  commission  connected  with  the  cotton 
trade,  that  I  was  invited  to  witness,  a  religious  ceremonial  at 
the  court  of  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  Soudan.  You  must 
know  that  though  the  country  professes  Christianity,  the  royal 
family  have  never  abandoned  the  rite  of  circumcision.  This  is 
inflicted  on  its  members  in  infancy,  the  rite  of  baptism  being 
deferred  until  the  seventh  year.  The  ordinary  and  orthodox 
usage  on  the  former  occasion,  is  to  bind  the  principal  crown 
diamonds  on  the  pit  of  the  royal  infant's  stomach,  there  to  be 
worn  for  nine  days.  The  jewels  in  question  are  regarded  with 
a  peculiar  and  superstitious  reverence,  as  coming  directly  from 
King  Solomon,  and  they  are  combined  in  an  oval  form  as  a 
tiara,  and  called  the  Talisman  of  Solomon.  But  the  crown 
jewels  had  for  several  years  been  missing,  and  were  not  forth- 
coming on  the  occasion  of  the  first  rite  being  performed  on  the 
heir-apparent.  It  was  said  that  they  had  recently  been 
recovered,  and  there  was  great  public  rejoicings  in  conse- 
quence ;  for  the  people  are  still  excessively  superstitious,  in 
spite  of  their  having  Christianity  and  the  Bible.  And  it  was 
determined  to  rectify  the  omission  at  the  first  ceremony,  by 
using  them  at  the  baptism  in  the  same  way  that  they  ought  to 
have  been  used  at  the  circumcision. 

"Well,  I  found  that  this  famous  and  sacred  Talisman  of  Sol- 
omon consisted  of  no  other  than  the  jewels  belonging  to  Criss, . 
and  which  we  had  sold  for  him." 

"  Curious,"  observed  Mr.  Avenil ;  "I  wonder 'whether  it  was 
a  lie  of  the  Emperors,  or  whether  they  were  really  the  crown 
jewels  which  he  had      If  so,  they  must  have  been  stolen." 


G8  BY  AND  BY. 

"  At  any  rate,"  said  Bertie,  "  the  Emperor's  readiness  to  give 
a  larg«  sum  of  money  for  their  recovery,  without  asking  any 
questions,  sliows  that  he  had  strong  misgivings  respecting  the 
validity  of  his  own  title  to  them." 

"  I  don't  like  one  remark  which  you  made,  Mr.  Greathead," 
said  my  grandmother.  "  Instead  of  saying  these  people  are 
superstitious  in  spite  of  their  having  Christianity  and  the 
Bible,  say  they  are  religious  owing  to  their  having  them." 

"  I  was  anticipating  a  somewhat  different  remark  from  you, 
m}"^  dear  Mrs.  Wilmer,"  said  Mr.  Avenil.  "  I  thought  j^ou 
were  about  to  claim  the  throne  of  Central  Africa,  at  least,  for 
the  lad.  At  any  rate,  I  hope  you  all  agree  with  me  that  this 
story  must  be  kept  from  him.  It  would  foster  his  propensity 
for  dreaming,  which  to  me  is  really  alarming,  and  one  that  re- 
quires correction  by  vigorous  treatment." 

"  He  must  know  all  when  he  comes  of  age,"  said  Mrs.  Wil- 
mer, with  energy.  "  His  duty  and  mission  in  life  may  depend 
upon  it." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  Mr.  Avenil,  "  whatever  the  future  may 
contain  for  him,  it  is  clearly  our  business  to  make  a  man  of  him 
first,  and  not  a  visionary." 


CHAPTER  X. 

It  was  no  small  gratification  to  Bertie  to  be  able  to  relate  to 
the  Avenils  anything  concerning  his  beloved  foster-child  that 
might  tend  to  disabuse  them  of  the  notion  that  he  was  a  mere 
visionary.  One  possessing  Criss's  acute  sympathy  with  liuman- 
ity  could  not,  he  thought,  be  liable  to  the  charge,  no  matter 
how  he  might  love  to  cultivate  solitude  and  meditation  in  the 
intervals  of  his  activity.  During  a  holiday  absence  of  the  boys, 
one  of  the  Avenil  girls  was  telling  her  sisters,  how  that  he  had 
lamented  to  her  the  fulness  of  the  world,  aiid  wished  that  he 
had  lived  before  the  modern  system  of  emigration  had  done  so 


BY  AND  BY.  60 

much  towards  spreading  population  everywhere.  And  another 
said  he  acted  as  if  he  possessed  an  extra  sense,  and  one  that 
required  for  its  exercise  a  total  withdrawal  from  human  inter- 
course. 

Bertie  happened  to  call  while  they  were  talking,  and  they  at 
once  turned  to  him,  asking — 

"  Where  is  he  now,  Mr.  Greathead  ?  " 

"  Meaning  Criss  ?  I  scarcely  know.  I  had  a  message  from 
him  a  few  days  ago  from  the  top  of  Teneriffe,  which  is  one  of 
his  favorite  perches.  He  has  a  friend  in  the  observatory  there. 
There  is  a  wire  on  the  summit,  as  on  most  other  summits,  for 
the  convenience  of  aerialists,  and  he  generally  sends  me  a  mes- 
sage when  he  alights  anywhere." 

''  Oh,  I  know,"  exclaimed  one  of  the  girls,  "  he  delights  to 
rest  awhile  on  some  high  peak,  and  thence  take  flight  into  the 
air,  and  return  again  to  it,  as  a  lark  to  its  nest,  after  being 
poised  aloft.  It  was  a  happy  inspiration  of  Mr.  Wilmer's  which 
gave  him  his  name,  for  never  did  name  and  nature  more  closely 
correspond.  However  dreamy  he  may  be,  he  must  see  many 
things  by  moving  about  so  much,  which  other  people  miss.  He 
ought  to  meet  with  adventures,  too.  Did  he  say  whither  he 
was  going  next  ?  " 

"  Yes,  to  Algiers  to  visit  a  school  friend  who  is  son  of  the 
British  minister  there.  I  have  not  heard  from  him  since,  but 
I  have  brought  you  an  Italian  paper  with  an  account  of  an 
extraordinary  rescue  of  people  from  destruction  by  the  eruption 
of  Etna,  which  I,  as  an  aerialist,  find  exceedingly  interesting, 
and  which  I  thought  you  might  like  to  see." 

''Anj-thing  about  Criss  in  it?" 

"  It  is  only  as  I  have  said." 

"  Do  tell  us  all  about  it." 

"Well,  you  must  know  that  for  a  veiy  long  time  Etna  had 
been  so  quiet  that  a  large  population  had  come  gradually  to 
settle  upon  its  slopes,  thinking  the  days  of  its  activity  were 
over.  Last  week,  however,  a  tremendous  eruption  rent  the 
mountain  in  various  places,  and  there  poured  out  torrents  of 
lava,   which,  meeting  below  one  of  the   most   thickly  peopled 


70  BT  AND  BT. 

slopes,  completely  cut  off  the  escape  of  the  inhabitants.  The 
Italian  Government  sent  its  best  aiirialists  to  try  and  extricate 
them,  but  these,  after  many  and  disastrous  attempts  to  pass  the* 
barrier  of  intense  heat,  and  alight  exactly  upon  the  very  limited 
area  available,  were  compelled  to  desist ;  and  then  from  within 
the  flaming  circle,  from  the  wretches  doomed  to  be  burnt  or 
starved  to  death,  and  from  their  sympathizing  but  helpless 
comrades  without,  went  up  a  cry  of  agony,  which,  as  you  know, 
has  rung  through  all  the  wires  of  the  world,  appealing  for  aid. 
I  and  others  of  my  craft  were  on  the  point  of  starting  to  see 
what  we  could  do,  when  a  telegram  came  to  say  that  the  rescue 
had  been  effected.  I  have  now  got  the  details,  and  as  I  con- 
sider them  a  whole  bunch  of  feathers  in  the  cap  of  aiirialism,  I 
have  come  to  glorify  my  calling  and  its  professors  among  my 
friends. 

"  It  j*ppears  that  at  the  moment  when  despair  was  at  its 
height,  an  aerialist  whose  approach  had  been  unperceived, 
alighted  in  the  terror-stricken  crowd,  and  signified  his  readi- 
ness and  ability  to  save  them,  one  at  a  time.  The  peasants, 
who  are  still  as  much  a  parcel  of  children  as  they  were  five  or 
ten  thousand  years  ago,  rushed  upon  him,  determined  to  be 
saved  all  at  once.  Seeing  that  their  violence  would  be  the 
destruction  of  himself  and  his  machine,  as  well  as  of  themselves 
also,  he  dexterously  disengaged  himself,  and  leaping  aloft  out 
of  their  reach,  was  lost  to  their  view  in  the  smoke  of  the  burn- 
ing mountain.  On  hearing  their  renewed  wail  of  desjiair,  he 
presently  returned  towards  them,  and  hailing  them,  said  he 
hoped  now  that  they  would  do  as  they  were  told,  and  not 
attempf  to  get  into  the  car  again.  He  then  stopped  a  few 
yards  over  their  heads,  and  bade  them  depute  one  of  their  num- 
ber to  hold  parley  with  him,  the  rest  keeping  at  a  distance. 
Luckily  their  padre  was  with  them, — it  is  he  who  has  given  the 
account, — and  it  was  under  his  influence  that  the  stipulations 
of  the  aerialist  were  observed.  'The  important  question  who 
should  go  first,  was  settled  in  favor  of  the  children.  The 
ai-rialist  said  he  could  carry  two  of  these  at  once ;  so  the  padre 
brought  two  children  himself,  and  placed  them  in  the  car,  for 


BT  AND  BY.  71 

he  could  not  trust  the  mothers  to  obey  the  orders  given.  He 
describes  it  as  a  moment  of  agonizing  anxiety  when  the  car 
arose  with  its  first  load,  and  disappeared  in  the  smoke.  But 
not  a  voice  ventured  to  utter  a  sound.  Presently,  however, 
there  arose  from  the  multitudes  who  were  assembled  on  the  out- 
side of  the  ring  of  fire,  a  cry  and  a  shout  of  joy  which  told 
those  within  of  the  safe  and  unexpected  arrival  of  the  car  and 
its  contents.  All  was  delirious  delight  for  a  moment,  and  then 
came  an  interval  of  suspense.  But  soon  the  car  returned  and 
carried  off  more  children ;  and  then  the  aged  and  infirm,  and 
then  the  able  bodied,  the  good  padre  himself  being  reserved 
for  the  last,  the  lava  having  by  this  time  approached  so  near 
that  a  little  delay  would  have  rendered  his  escape  impossible. 
The  rescue  had  occupied  all  the  day  and  a  part  of  the  night, 
though  much  time  had  been  saved  by  the  plan  of  suspending  a 
large  basket  beneath  the  car  in  which  the  passengers  were  car- 
ried. But  it  was  not,  and  could  not  be  intermitted  until  com- 
pleted, though  it  must  have  tasked  the  endurance  of  the  aerial- 
ist  and  the  powers  of  his  machine  to  the  utmost." 

"  You  haven't  told  us  who  he  was,"  said  Avenil,  who  had  en- 
tered during  the  relation.     "  Was  he  an  Italian  ?  " 

"  Ah,  that  is  one  of  the  strangest  parts  of  the  story,"  said 
Bertie.  "When  the  people  had  done  congratulating  them- 
selves and  each  other,  they  bethought  themselves  of  their  deliv- 
erer :  but  on  searching  for  him  he  was  nowhere  to  be  found. 
The  Government  has  advertised  the  thanks  of  the  nation  to  the 
unknown  aerialist,  and  offered  to  make  any  acknowledgment 
of  hfS  services  in  its  power." 

"Do  you  know  any  professional  likely  to  have  done  it  ?  " 
"  I  know  none  who  has  an  aeromotive  corresponding  with 
the  description  of  this  one  ;  ancf  it  is  not  like  a  professional  to 
tliink  of  concealing  himself  after  doing  a  piece  of  business.  I 
suspect  it  was  some  accomplished  amateur,  though  I  know  of 
but  one  in  the  world  capable  of  the  feat." 
"  Could  it  have  been  Criss  ?  " 

"  Here  he  comes  to  speak  for  himself,"  exclaimed  one  of  the 
girls,  who  was  looking  out  of  the  window.  And  presently  the 
Ariel  alighted  on  the  broad  verandah,  and  Criss  entered. 


72  BY  AND  BY. 

But  to  all  the  questions  with  which  they  assailed  him,  he 
said  only  that  he  had  hoped  to  escape  heing  found  out,  and 
that  the  reason  of  his  delay  in  returning  was  that  he  was  so 
exhausted  with  the  job  that  he  had  hurried  off  the  moment  he 
had  let  go  the  padre  and  the  basket,  and  slept  for  twenty-four 
hours  in  a  secluded  nook  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  mountain. 

"  Well,  there  is  an  Italian  countship  waiting  for  you  when- 
ever you  choose  to  come  out  of  your  shell  and  claim  it,"  said 
Bertie. 

"  Count  Carol  sounds  charmingly,"  exclaimed  the  girls. 
''  You  may  find  it  of  immense  use  when  you  fall  in  love.  A 
woman  likes  to  be  called  Countess:'' 

"  Xot  a  woman  of  much  account,  though,  I  suspect,"  re- 
turned Criss,  making  his  first  and  last  joke,  as  he  disappeared 
and  went  to  his  own  room. 

.  "  There,  girls,"  said  Avenil  to  his  j^ouuger  sisters  after  Criss 
Was  gone.  "  You  see,  a  woman  who  wants  to  catch  him  will 
have  to  be  on  her  best  behavior.  By  the  way,  has  he  ever 
shown  any  signs  of  falling  in  love,  any  preferences  for  any  of 
3'our  sweet  sex  ?  " 

"  Never,"  said  the  youngest,  Bessy  Avenil,  a  blooming,  prac- 
tically-disposed damsel  of  nearly  Criss's  own  age,  now  about 
seventeen.  "  And  I  believe  he  would  need  a  good  shaking  to 
bring  him  to  the  point ;  or,  rather,  that  a  woman  would  have 
to  do  the  proposing  herself.  But  I  don't  believe  it  is  '  good- 
ness' that  will  win  him;  at  least,  not  if  opposites  have  the 
most  attraction  for  each  other." 

"  At  any  rate  he  won't  find  his  dujjlicate,"  said  another, 
who  was  a  little  older.  "  My  belief  is  that  he  will  be  better 
single,  for  he  is  just  dne  to  expect  so  much  that  he  will  always 
be  disappointed  with  what  he  finds  to  be  really  the  case.  He 
seems  to  me  like  one  of  those  men  who  in  old  times  women 
would  have  thought  it  a  sacrilege  to  love." 

"  At  any  rate,"  added  Avenil,  "  he  was  now  proved  himself 
to  be  something  more  than  a  visionary ;  so  let  us  hope  that  this 
adventure  will  develop  his  practical  side." 


BY  AND  BY.  73 

"  Meaning  his  matrimonial  ?  "  asked  Bessie. 
'  Do  you  know,"  said  Bertie  to  Avenil,  "  that  I  think  you 
carry  your  aversion  to  the  contemplative  to  an  extreme." 

"  Call  it  rather  the  unpractical  speculative,"  replied  Avenil, 
"  The  world's  whole  history  down  nearly  to  our  own  time  has 
been  little  else  than  one  long  martyrdom,  in  which  man  has  sac- 
rificed himself  at  the  altar  of  his  own  unverifiable  phantasies. 
Ours  is  the  first  millennium  of  the  Emancipation.  It  is  the 
product  of  that  scientific  spirit,  which  refuses  to  divorce  belief 
from  knowledge.  It  is  not  that  I  find  dear  Criss's  disposition 
aught  but  of  the  noblest,  but  that  I  fear  the  indulgence  of  that 
style  of  thought  may  lead  to  his  sympathizing  rather  with  the 
world's  ancient  worst  than  with  its  modern  best." 

"  You  know  a  good  deal  about  his  education,"  said  Bertie ; 
"  have  you  found  him  defective  in  his  views  of  history  ?  " 

"  No,  far  from  it.  The  professor  of  history  at  his  school  told 
me  the  boy's  sympathies,  as  shewn  in  his  essays,  were  invariably 
of  the  widest  and  most  radically  catholic  kind." 

"  And  in  chemistry,  which  you  yourself  undertook  to  teach 
him  ?  " 

"  Ah,  there  is  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  He  applied 
himself  to  that  with  wonderful  assiduity  and  success,  making 
himself  in  a  short  time  a  complete  master  of  chemical  analysis. 
Then  he  suddenly  dropped  it ;  and  on  my  enquiring  the  reason, 
said  that  it  would  not  take  him  where  he  wanted  to  go,  inas- 
much as  it  failed  to  discover  the  universal  entity  that  underlies 
all  phenomena.  It  was  not  processes  or  stages  that  he  cared 
for,  but  the  ultimate  analysis  of  things,  whereby  he  could 
resolve  the  various  material  substances  into  their  prime  element. 
'  Is  it  past  finding  out,  Avenil  dear  ? '  he  cried,  his  eyes  glis- 
tening with  eagerness,  as  if  his  whole  heart  lay  in  discovering 
for  himself  what  men  call  God.  '  Of  course  I  told  him  that  it  is 
past  finding  out  by  chemistry. 

"  '  But  it  must  be  there,  and  must  be  homogeneous  !'  he  cried, 
with  the  same  eager  manner.  'If  it  is  not  homogeneous,  it  is 
not  God.  I  cannot  think  of  God  as  made  up  of  substances 
eternally  and  essentiallj'  different.'   •  And  he  went  on  to  declare 


74  ay  AND  BY. 

that  if  the  crucible  failed  to  carrry  analysis  back  to  the  stage 
where  all  things  meet,  and  to  reveal  to  him  the  universal  Sub- 
stance or  essential  spirit  of  things,  he  should  exchange  the 
crucible  of  the  chemist  ftjr  the  crucible  of  his  own  mind,  and 
continue  the  search  there. 

"Considering  it  a  perilous  temperament  that  prompts  the 
longing  to  merge  one's  individuality  in  the  inscrutable  uni- 
versal,— for  what  else  is  the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhist  ? — I 
endeavored  to  check  his  indulgence  of  it  by  saying  that  as 
our  faculties,  being  themselves  phenomenal,  cannot  transcend 
phenomena,  it  is  clearly  our  duty  to  rest  content  with 
phenomena,  and  not  seek  to  trespass  upon  forbidden  ground. 
He  asked  what  the  penalty  is  for  making  the  attempt.  I  told 
him  a  wasted  life,  fatuity,  and  oftimes  madness,  as  the  history 
of  the  world  amply  showed.  And  I  spoke  seriously,  as  I  wished 
to  impress  him  with  a  sense  of  the  danger  he  runs  through  in- 
dulging his  theistic  tendencies.  But  he  laughed,  and  said  with 
that  winning  way  he  has, — 

"  '  Dear  Master  Avenil,  if  I  were  made  so,  no  doubt  I  should 
be  able  to  remain  content  with  mere  phenomena,  without  seek- 
ing to  know  what  it  is  that  appears  in  and  through  them. 
But  I  feel  that  I  am  not  made  so.  Suppose  me,  then,  to  be  a 
bit  of  the  universe,  a  conscious  particle -of  the  great  whole, 
would  you  have  iiie  balk  my  longing  to  recognize,  and  be  recog- 
nized of,  the  whole  of  which  I  am  a  part  ?  Nay,  supposing  the 
theory  which  you  favor  to  be  correct,  and  that  it  is  only  in  our 
consciousness  that  the  Universe  attains  self-consciousness,  would 
you  forbid  Nature  such  crowning  satisfaction  as  it  may  attain 
through  my  consciousness  ?  ' 

"  What  could  I  say?     Bertie,  what  would  you  have  said?  " 

"If  the  longing  be  genuine,  fulfil  your  nature,  only  do  not 
cultivate  fancy  to  the  neglect  of  experience." 

"  Well,  that  is  very  much  what  I  contrived  to  say,  and  the 
boy  cried,  '  Ah,  that  is  just  as  my  own  dear  wise  Bertie  would 
have  spoken.' 

"He  added,  too,  that  even  if  madness  be  the  penalty  for 
presuming  to  endeavor  to  penetrate  the  unfathomable,  it  was  a 


BY   AND  BY.  75 

penalty  tliat  was  quite  as  likely  to  overtake  him  if  he  refused 
his  nature  full  liberty  of  exploration.  I  suspect  that  his  habits 
of  physical  discursiveness  have  something  to  do  with  this 
mental  characteristic." 

"You  know  his  favorite  motto,  which  he  inscribes  in  his 
most  private  entries  ?  "  asked  Bertie. 

"  No,  what  is  it  ?  " 

"  A  text  from  Scripture,  '  One  with  God.'  " 

Avenil  sighed,  for  he  really  loved  the  lad. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  women  of  the  Avenil  family,  both  for  their  connection 
with  Criss,  and  as  types  of  a  dominant  class,  deserve  a  special 
chapter  to  themselves.  Although  by  describing  our  recent 
social  developments  and  the  steps  whereby  our  national  church 
was  brought  into  accord  with  them,  I  may  delay  my  story,  my 
readers  must  not  think  that  I  am  digressing  from  the  main 
purpose  of  my  book.  The  connection  may  not  be  at  once  obvi- 
ous, but  neither  in  these  fortunate  days  is  the  special  connection 
obvious  between  the  church  and  the  female  part  of  the  com- 
munity. It  was  not  so  in  the  times  to  which  I  shall  have  to 
recur  in  order  to  make  my  story,  as  a  story  of  the  day  should 
be,  an  index  to  the  manners  of  the  age. 

I  wish  that  it  came  within  my  scope  fully  to  delineate  the 
characters  of  old  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Avenil,  who  disappear  from  the 
scene  about  the  time  at  which  we  have  arrived.  It  is  only  per- 
mitted to  me  to  say  that  they  died  as  they  had  lived,  content- 
edly resigned  to  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  that  Nature  which 
had  ever  been  the  subject  of  their  deepest  study.  United,  in 
harmony  with  the  dictates  of  their  consciences,  in  a  marriage 
of  the  third  class,  and  therefore  trusting  solely  to  their  own 
sense  of  mutual  fitness  and  sympathy  for  the  continuance  of 
their  association,  no  cloud  had  ever  intervened  between  them 


76  BY  AND  BY. 

and  the  full  sunshine  of  tlioir  happiness.  Hand  in  hand  they 
lived  and  loved  and  worked,  trusting  to  their  respect  for  the 
physieal  laws  of  life  to  find  its  due  issue  in  the  development  of 
their  moral  natures.  So  they  passed  through  life  cheerful,  reli- 
ant, and  self-sustaining,  emulating  in  their  own  method  the  con- 
summate ease  and  enchanting  rhythm  of  the  oi'der  of  the  uni- 
verse; keenly  enjoj'ing  in  their  heyday  the  rewards  reaped  of 
knowledge  and  obedience,  and,  in  their  decline,  still  finding 
pleasure  in  tracing  and  recognizing  the  inevitable  sequence  of 
the  steps  which  marked  their  decay.  To  the  very  last,  their 
delight  in  studying  the  phenomena  of  the  present,  made  them 
indifferent  to  those  of  the  past  or  future.  Neither  regret  nor 
hope  found  a  place  in  their  minds.  Wherever  is  existence, 
tliey  said,  we  shall  find  something  worthy  to  be  studied.  What- 
ever lasts  as  long  as  we  do  is  sufficient  for  us.  Anticipation 
serves  only  to  spoil  the  actual.  Anxiety  about  the  -future  im- 
plies dissatisfaction  with  the  present.  Such  was  their  religion, 
a  term  surely  not  misapplied,  though  devoid  of  that  yearning 
towards  a  personified  ideal  which  constitutes  spirituaUty. 

They  left  a  large  and  distinguished  family  to  inherit  a  tem- 
jierament  in  which  the  intellectual  faculties  dominated  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  spiritual.  For  they  held  it  as  an  axiom  that 
the  spiritual  faculty  which  has  not  the  intellectual  and  moral 
for  its  basis — that  is,  which  ignores  evidence  and  utility — is  apt 
to  be  as  pernicious  as  the  imagination  which  ignores  experience 
and  fact.  Of  this  family  Mistress  Susanna  Avenil  (to  give  her 
tlie  usual  designation  of  women  living  in  such  wedlock  as  she 
insisted  on)  was  the  eldest ;  Charles  himself  coming  next ;  and 
the  younger  ones,  whom  I  have  termed  the  Avenil  girls,  bring- 
ing up  the  rear.  There  was  thus  a  very  considerable  interval 
between  the  eldest  and  the  youngest  of  the  brothers  and  sisters. 

Bright,  intelligent,  cheerful,  and  active,  the  sisters  were  a 
model  of  self-helpfulness  and  prudence.  Though  not  devoid  of 
sentiment  in  regard  to  the  delicate  matters  of  the  affections, 
they  were  too  practical  in  their  management  to  let  their  affec- 
tions minister  to  their  discomfort.  They  had  one  and  all 
asserted  the  privilege  accorded  to  girls  now-a-days,  of  quitting 


BY  AND  BY.  77 

the  parental  shelter  at  the  same  age  that  their  brothers  quit 
it,  in  order,  like  them,  to  follow  the  vocations  they  have 
chosen. 

No  sickly  exotics  were  they,  such  as  their  foremothers  of  ages 
long  past.     For  them  was  no  herding  together  under  the  per- 
petual parental  eye^  like  silly  sheep  sure  to  he  lost  if  once  they 
strayed ;  no   sacrificing  the  individuality  of    their   genius    or 
their  characters,  and  passing  their  lives   in   worthless  frivolity 
or  listless  indolence,   envious    of    the    active   careers    of   their 
brothers,  powerless  to  earn  or  to  spend,  and  absolute  slaves  to 
the   exigencies    or   caprices    of   their   parents,  until   marriage 
should  come  to  deliver   them  to   a  new  bondage.     The  days 
happily  are  long  past,  in  which,  while  to  men  all  careers  "were 
open,  to  women   there  was  but   one,  and  it  depended  upon  the 
Avill  of  individual  men  to  accord  them  that.     It  is  little  wonder 
that,  thus  placed,  the  women  of  those  times  should  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  marriage,  with  an  eagerness  com- 
mensurate with  the  iincertainty  of  success,  and  reckless  whether 
the  issue  promised  ill  or  well.     Nor  is  it  strange  that,  caring 
nothing  for  the  characters  of  the  men,  but  only  for  their  wealth, 
the  women  should  have  so  deteriorated  in  their  own  characters 
that  the  men  ceased  to  care  for  them,  except  as  companions  of 
the  moment,  and  declined  to  ally  themselves  with  them  in  any 
but  the  most  temporary  manner.     The  literature  of  the  Victo- 
rian era,  just  preceding  the  Emancipation,  abounds  in  evidences 
of  the  hapless  condition  of  the  British  female   of  that   period, 
particularly  in  the  middle  and  upper  classes.     It  was  the  very 
intensity  of  her  despair  of  any  amelioration  of  her  condition 
by  conventional  remedies,  that  precipitated  the  radical  change 
of  which  we  are  now  so  richly  reaping  the  benefits.     That  .this 
change   was  not  effected  long  before,  was  owing,  it  must  be 
confessed,  to  the  timidity  of  the  men,  and  their  want  of  faith 
in  the  inherent  goodness  of  the  female  heart.     The  men  had 
suffered  the  women  to  retain  their  belief  in  ecclesiastical  infalli- 
bility long  after  they  themselves  had  abandoned  such  belief. 
The  irrevocability  of  marriage,  dictated   as  it  was  b}'  priests, 
had  at  least  the  appearance  of  being  a  revenge  taken  by  them 


78  BY  AND  BY. 

for  their  own  exclusion  from  it.     It  was  the  disastrous  result  of 
ecclesiastical  restriction   upon   the   relations  of  the   sexes,   far 
more  than  a  process  of  rational  investigation,  that  opened  the 
female  mind  to  the  baselessness  of  ecclesiastical  pretensions. 
The  men  fought  their  own  way  to  freedom  by  dint  of   hard 
brain-work.     It  was   for   them  a  battle    royal   between    truth 
and  falsehood,  or  rather  between  the  right  to  obey    the    dic- 
tates of  their  own  minds  and  consciences,  and  the  claims  of 
antiquated  tradition.      But   they  did   not   take   their  women 
with  them.     Either  through  difference  of  nature  or  difference 
of  training,  these    were    not    amenable    to    the  considerations 
which  had  influenced  the    men.      Woman    cared   nothing  for 
the  abstract    truth  or  falsehood    of   her   religion.     Her   heart 
was  the  sole  instrument  whereby    she    judged   such    matters. 
The  ordinance  of  the  cliurch  which  rigidly  forbade  all  inter- 
course with  the  other  sex,  save  on  condition  of  an  indissoluble 
life-long   contract,  had   come   to  have  the  effect  of  abolishing 
even  those  very  contracts.      While    those   who    were    already 
involved    in    them,  finding    themselves    unable  to    part,   were 
driven  more  and  more  to  desert.     Woman  had  so  far  subor- 
dinated her  intellect  and  moral  sense  to  the  authority  of  her 
priests,  so  far  forgotten  her  heart,  as  to  accept  at  their  hands 
a  deity  and  a  faith  which  were  independent  of  any  considera- 
tions recognizable    by  those  faculties.      Her  new-born  infant 
might  be  consigned  to  everlasting  torture  for  the  omission  by 
its  parents  of   a   prescribed  ecclesiastical  ceremony ;    but   the 
system  that  kej)t  her  from    getting  a  husband    in  this  world 
was  intolerable.      And    by  insisting    on    the  absolute  perma- 
nence of  the  tie,  the  church  had  virtually  abolished  marriage. 
That  a  great  change  was  necessary  and  inevitable,  was  seen 
by  both  men  and  women  long  before  the  particular  nature  of 
the  change  could    be   forecast.     The   patience  of   the    British 
people    never   received    a  more    signal    illustration.     Desiring 
gradual    amelioration,    and   not    sharp    revolution,    generation 
after  generation  went  on  hoping  against  hope.     But  the  evil 
continued  to  increase.     The  women  flocked  to  their  temples, 
and  performed  ardent  devotions  j  but  they  did  not  obtain  hus- 


BY  AND  BY.  79 

bands ;  neither  did  they  lose  the  desire  for  them.  In  those 
few  generations,  when  the  evil  was  at  its  worst,  millions  of  fair, 
well-grown,  noble-minded  women,  lived  and  died  in  hapless 
longing  to  fulfil  their  nature,  and  find  a  scope  for  their  affec- 
tions. The  causes  were  numerous,  hut  they  were  all  traceable 
to  one  general  cause,  the  violation  of  natural  law.  Destructive 
wars,  huge  standing  armies,  colonization  by  males  alone — 
these  had  served  to  destroy  the  proper  numerical  proportion 
between  the  sexes.  Added  to  this  was  the  artificial  tone  of 
society,  whereby  women  had  come  to-be  regarded  as  weaklings 
unfit  to  bear  the  storms  of  life,  or  to  help  men  to  fight  and  win 
their  way  in  the  world;  equal,  however,  to  sharing  the  spoils 
after  the  victory  had  been  won.  Even  parents  preferred  to  see 
their  daughters  pine  and  wither  in  singlehood,  to  their  wed- 
ding on  other  terms. 

It  was  not  to  destroy,  but  to  restore  marriage  that  the 
country  at  length  consented  to  extend  the  principle  of  limited 
liability  to  the  relations  between  the  sexes.  The  evil  was  at 
its  height  when  the  legislature  passed  an  enactment  recogniz- 
ing as  valid  other  contracts  than  those  on  which  it  had  hitherto 
insisted  in  marriage.  As  is  well-known,  the  relief  was  in- 
stantaneous, the  morals  of  the  country  were  saved,  marriage 
was  restored,  the  family  was  preserved.  Many,  remembering 
the  ancient  feuds,  declared  that  this  only  was  wanting  to  com- 
plete the  triumph  of  Protestantism.  Our  institutions  were  now 
free  from  the  reproach  of  immorality  attaching  to  all  vows  in- 
volving irrevocability.  While  many  took  this  view  of  the 
indissoluble  contract,  ninions  without  any  contract  were  held  in 
universal  repi-obation.  People  were  free  to  make  their  own 
terms  of  partnership,  but  a  contract  cognizable  by  the  state 
was  regarded  as  indispensable  for  all  persons  possessing  self- 
respect,  and  to  marry  without  a  formal  contract  was,  as  is  still 
the  case,  regarded  as  highly  improper.  But  it  is  for  breaches 
of  contract,  whether  formal  or  implied,  that  society  reserves  its 
strongest  condemnation. 

The  ingenuity  of  the  lawyers  proved  equal  to  the  require- 
ments of  the  new  regime.     Forms  of  contract  suitable  to  all 


80  ^y  AND  BY. 

tastes  and  circumstances  were  duly  invented.  Practically,  the 
marriages  were  (and  are)  of  three  kinds :  those  which  were  dis- 
soluble only  through  the  intervention  of  a  court  of  law :  those 
■which  required  the  mutual  consent  of  the  parties :  and  those 
which  were  voidable  at  the  will  of  one  of  the  parties.  But 
in  all  of  them  room  is  generally  found  for  legal  assistance. 
They  are  called,  respectively,  marriages  of  the  first,  second,  and 
third  class. 

Thus,  the  sequel  showed  how  huge  is  the  mistake  made  by 
man  when  he  seeks  to  regulate  existing  society  by  ideas  belong- 
ing to  a  remote  past.  The  feelings  of  the  living  will  not  be 
ignored.  Admitted  to  their  due  share  in  the  council,  they  are 
an  indispensable  ally.  The  Maids'  Revolt,  as  the  woman's 
movement,  which  had  its  origin  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  was  called,  was  an  important  contribution  towards 
the  achievement  of  "the  glorious  Emancipation,"  which  in- 
volved the  utter  fall  of  the  old  church  system. 

It  was  a  comparatively'  small  spark  that  fired  so  great  a 
train.  Had  the  ecclesiastical  mind  been  of  a  more  practical 
cast,  it  would  have  consented  to  concessions  that  might  have 
saved  the  edifice  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

A  movement  was  made  (it  was  in  the  latter  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century)  for  relieving  the  church-going  public  from  the 
recitation  of  a  creed  which  contained  clauses  repugnant  alike 
to  their  intellect,  their  moral  sense,  and  their  good  taste.  This 
creed,  called,  according  to  ecclesiastical  wont,  by  the  name  of  a 
jjerson  who  was  well  known  to  have  had  no  hand  in  its  pro- 
duction, not  only  contained  statements  which  were  altogether 
incomprehensible  or  self-contradictory,  but  by  virtue  of  what, 
in  the  vocabulary  of  the  female  theologians  of  the  j)eriod,  were 
designated  its  drat-^toxy  clauses,  it  consigned  to  everlasting 
misery  all  who  failed  implicitly  to  accept  those  statements. 

The  ecclesiastical  mind,  incapable  of  appreciating  that  finer 
sense  of  truthfulness,  which  led  the  laity  to  hesitate  about  de- 
claring their  belief  in  statements  avowedly  beyond  evidence 
and  probability;  or  of  charity,  which  made  them  demur  to 
passing  upon  their  neighbors  such  sentence,  and  for  such  cause, 


BY  AND  BY.  81 

stuck  to  the  obnoxious  formulary  with  all  the  obstinacy  of  a 
papal  infallibility.  The  so-called  "  Creed  of  St.  Athanasius  " 
thus  operated  as  a  seton  to  keep  the  sore  open,  until  at  length 
all  the  other  creeds  and  dogmas  of  the  church  were  brought 
into  question.  Of  these,  the  dogma  of  marriage  was  the  one 
that  ultimately  enlisted  the  women  on  the  side  of  freedom  ;  and 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  the  Woman  was 
arrayed  against  the  Priest.  The  cause  of  freedom  was  won 
once  for  all.  Thenceforth,  for  all  civilized  peoples,  experience 
took  the  place  of  tradition  and  authority  in  the  guidance  of 
life.- 

It  was  in  pursuance  of  the  same  princijjle  that  the  enfran- 
chisement of  women  was  restricted  to  matters  purely  social.  In 
all  that  affected  the  mutual  convenience  of  rhe  sexes,  they  were 
allowed  to  bear  their  jjart.  From  politics,  as  resting  upon 
strength  of  muscle,  and  therefore  fitted  only  for  men,  they  were 
excluded.  It  is  true  they  did  not  readily  acquiesce  in  the  lim- 
itation. And  the  argument  based  upon  Babies  failing,  the 
men  fell  back  on  the  argument  based  upon  Biceps.  "  When 
you  can  share,"  they  said,  "our  place  as  policemen,  soldiers, 
and  sailors,  by  land,  sea  and  air,  then  we  shall  be  happy  to  ad- 
mit you  to  a  share  in  the  enactment  of  laws,  of  which,  at  pres- 
ent, the  execution  falls  upon  us.  We  grant  that  taxation  in- 
volves a  certain  right,  but  it  is,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned,  the 
right,  not  of  representation,  but  of  protection." 

But  though  we  declined  to  confer  public  legislative  and 
executive  functions  upon  women,  we  were  not  unwilling  to  con- 
ciliate them  by  utilizing  their  suggestive  powers,  and  so  created 
the  chamber  which  bears  the  name  of  the  House  of  Female 
Convocation,  the  members  of  which  are  elected  by  women, 
though  they  need  not  themselves  be  women.  The  powers  of 
this  body  are  investigatory,  deliberative,  and  recommendatory, 
in  regard  to  the  Houses  of  Legislature.  It  thus  serves  as  a 
place  for  initiating  the  discussion  of  questions  especially  affect- 
ing women  and  children.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  although 
in  the  first  enthusiasm  for  its  institution,  a  very  small  propor- 
6 


83  J^y  AND  BY. 

tion  of  those  elected  were  men,  the  nuinher  of  women  has,  ever 
since,  steadily  declined,  until  it  now  amounts  to  scarcely  five 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  body.  Considering  moreover,  the  great- 
ness and  importance  of  its  constituency,  the  House  of  Female 
Convocation  has  not  attained  the  eminence  and  influence  which 
might  fairly  have  been  expected  for  it. 

Two  hypotheses  have  been  framed  to  account  for  this  com- 
parative failure.  One,  that  women  do  not  choose  the  best  per- 
sons to  represent  them.  The  other,  that  the  circumstance  of 
being  chosen  by  and  having  to  represent  women,  has  a  delete- 
rious effect  upon  the  persons  chosen. 

"Mistress  Susanna  Avenil,  who  was  for  a  term  Vice  President 
of  the  chamber,  is  acknowledged  to  have  been  one  of  the  most 
useful  it  has  ever  possessed. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


And  what  had  the  Church  to  say  for  the  new  social  devel- 
opment ?  Its  once  famous  Reformation  had  delivered  it  from 
the  tyranny  of  Rome.  But  how  came  it  to  consent  to  the 
Emancii?ation,  which  delivered  it  from  the  tyranny  of  its  own 
dogmas  and  traditions  ?  Deprived  of  its  life-blood,  how  could 
the  Church  continue  to  exist  ? 

For  one  reared  as  I  was,  in  the  ranks  of  the  old  orthodox 
Remnant,  such  questions  as  these  involve  far  greater  signifi- 
cance than  is  now-a-days  generally  recognized.  I  can  see  now 
that  what  I  and  my  fellow-religionists  took  for  the  church's  life- 
blood,  was  in  reality  its  death-poison.  I  shall  save'space  in  my 
narrative,  and  at  the  same  time  fulfil  one  essential  part  of  its 
design,  if  I  anticipate  by  some  years  the  introduction  of  myself 
into  the  story,  and  relate  here  the  incident  which  led,  ultimate- 
ly, to  my  return  to  The  Triangle,  and  intimacy  with  Christmas 
Carol. 

From  all  things  external  to  our  own  sect,  we  of  the  Remnant 


BY    AND  BY.  83 

rigidly  kept  aloof,  regarding  ourselves  as  a  peculiar  people,  en-, 
dowed  with  the  high  duty  of  keeping  alive  on  earth  the  light 
of  Divine  tradition,  as  derived  from  remote  antiquity,  and  in- 
terpreted by  the  teachers  whom  for  the  correctness    of   their 
views  we  selected  to  he  its  exponents. 

We  thus  represented  the  secession  from  the  Emancipation, 
for  we  consisted  of  that  party  which  refused  to  acknowledge,  as 
being  a  church  at  all,  an  institution  which  did  not  define  the 
faith  and  practice  of  its  members  according  to  standards  de- 
rived from  antiquity,  but  left  it  to  the  congregations  and  their 
teachers  to  follow  their  own  individual  perceptions  in  faith  and 
morals. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  so  vast  a  movement  was  not  made 
without  causing  considerable  inconvenience  and  distress.  The 
number  of  the  malcontent  clergy  was  too  great  for  more  than  a 
fraction  of  them  to  find  employment  within  the  Remnant.  Of 
the  rest,  some  entered  upon  a  secular  life,  and  others,  to  a  consid- 
erable number,  accepted  a  proposal  made  by  the  Emperor  of 
Abyssinia,  that  they  should  settle  in  that  country,  which 
already  was  Christian,  and  attempt  the  conversion  of  his  newly 
acquired  provinces  in  Soudan.  It  is  owing  to  their  labors  that 
throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Central  African  plateau, 
from  the  ISTile  to  the  Niger,  the  profession  of  Christianity  has 
succeeded  to  that  of  Mahometanism.  The  achievements  of 
Christmas  Carol  in  those  regions,  thus  have  for  me,  as  an  old 
member  of  the  Remnant,  a  peculiar  interest. 

Of  course,  I  see  now  plainly  enough,  that  a  civil  government 
cannot  Avith  any  reasonableness  or  propriety  claim  to  be  quali- 
fied to  decide  between  different  points  and  modes  of  faith,  or 
to  select  one  form  of  belief  in  preference  to  another.  All  that 
such  a  government  can  know  is  that  it  depends  for  its  own 
existence  and  stability  upon  the  general  intelligence  and  moral 
sense  of  its  citizens  •,  so  that  it  cannot  with  any  show  of  con- 
sistency, or  regard  for  the  common  security,  maintain  a  system 
which  sets  that  intelligence  and  moral  sense  at  nought. 

But  we  of  the  Secession  did  not  think  so,  for  those  whom  we 
had    appointed  to  be  our  teachers   did  not    think  so,  and  we 


84  SY  AND  BY. 

were  bound  to  follow  tliera.  Aiid  so  it  came,  that  wliile.  the 
vast  mass  of  our  countrymen  were  rejoicing  in  the  freedom  of 
the  Emancipation,  we  stood  aloof  under  the  old  banners  and 
declined  all  advance  towards  compromise  or  reconciliation. 
We  declined  even  to  read  books  and  newspapers  which  ema- 
nated from  the  other  side,  but  were  content  with  those 
which  we  could  ourselves  produce.  And,  though  existing  like 
a  congested  mass  in  the  midst  of  an  otherwise  healthy  system, 
we  were  entirely  without  thankfulness  for  the  tolerance  which 
left  us  unmolested. 

Such  tolerance,  I  remember,  struck  me  in  my  early  youth 
as  inexplicable,  except  on  the  ground  that  our  opponents  were 
possessed  b}-  a  secret  conviction  that  they  were  in  the  wrong. 
Had  our  side  been  in  a  large  majority,  we  certainly  should  not 
have  suffered  any  who  differed  from  us  to  exist.  Why,  then, 
did  the  other  side,  who  must  often  be  irritated  by  our  con- 
temptuous assumption  of  superiority,  and  even  of  infallibilit}^, 
not  annihilate  us  ?  We  assuredly  could  not  put  forward  our 
good  citizenship  a<s  a  plea  for  their  forbearance ;  for  we  made 
a  point  of  subordinating  our  duties  as  citizens  to  our  sectarian 
obligations,  and  this  especially  as  regarded  the  education  of 
our  youth,  and  thus  were  a  constant  thorn  in  the  sides  of  our 
countr^'men.  Could  it  be  that  they  despised  us  for  sentiment- 
ality and  feebleness,  or  for  the  paucity  of  our  numbers  ?  I 
could  not  comprehend  it ;  for  all  the  lessons  I  had  ever  been 
tauglit  were  those  of  the  most  rigid  intolerance  in  respect  of 
that  which  we  considered  wrong,  namely,  difference  in  opinion 
from  ourselves. 

One  evening  I  had  gone  to  hear  a  performance  of  sacred 
music  at  the  Alberthalla; — that  noble  monument  to  the 
virtues  of  a  famous  prince  of  the  Victorian  era — which,  with 
its  galleries  of  the  busts  of  British  worthies,  fulfils  a  double 
use  as  a  national  Valhalla,  and  a  hall  for  musical  and  vocal 
exercitations. 

After  getting  to  my  seat,  I  found  that  I  had  mistaken  the 
evening,  and  that  the  vast  crowd  which  prevented  my  leaving 
on  discovering  my  error,  had  met  to  witness  an  elocutionary 


BY  AND  Br.  85 

exhibition,  and  in  particular  to  hear  a  neAV  orator,  who  was 
said  to  be  gifted  with  the  finest  voice  and  manner  ever 
known. 

I  may  here  mention  for  the  benefit  of  my  younger  readers, 
that  the  institution  of  a  class  of  professional  orators, — reasona- 
ble and  necessary  as  it  appears  to  us,  who  are  accustomed  to  it 
— was  altogether  unknown  to  our  ancestors  of  a  few  genera- 
lions  back.  In  their  days  a  man  might  be  gifted  intellectually 
v.dth  the  loftiest  and  most  convincing  eloquence,  and  yet  be 
physically  incapable  of  uttering  a  word  in  public.  Of  course, 
vv'hen  the  whole  of  the  faculties,  mental  and  physical,  requisite 
to  make  the  complete  orator,  happened  to  be  combined  in  one 
person,  the  result  was  one  of  the  highest  achievements  of 
humanity.  But  this  was  necessarily  rare,  and  in  numberless 
instances  it  happened  that  the  noblest  souls  were  dumb,  the 
noblest  sentiments  unuttered,  simply  because  nature  had  not 
chosen  to  endow  the  same  individual  with  the  requisite  com- 
bination of  powers.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  numbers  of 
splendid  physiques  and  capacities,  so  far  as  voice,  manner,  and 
dramatic  faculty  were  concerned,  but  who  yet  lacked  the 
genius,  culture,  or  position,  which  were  needful  to  supply  them 
with  aught  to  say,  or  the  opportunity  for  saying  it.  For  a 
long  time  the  only  resource  for  such  as  these  was  the  Stage, 
for  there  the  actor  is  not  called  upon  to  supply  the  matter. 

At  length  it  occurred  to  two  men — I  do  not  know  whether 
they  were  brothers,  or  friends^to  combine  the  faculties  which 
they  possessed  in  a  remarkable  degree ;  the  one  as  a  thinker 
and  composer  of  orations,  the  other  as  an  elocutionist ;  and 
join  in  the  advocacy  of  some  great  public  question  which  they 
had  at  heart.  Carefully  and  patiently  did  they  work  together 
at  their  respective  parts,  until  the  time  came  for  public  utter- 
ance ;  the  composer,  who  had  an  impediment  in  his  speech, 
elaborating  his  matter  and  re-adjusting  his  sentences,  until  the 
argument  and  its  expression  perfectly  fitted  each  other,  and 
the  elocutionist  practising  his  delivery  of  the  speech  thus  per- 
fected, under  the  supervision  of  the  composer,  just  as  is  done 
in  learning  a  part  for  the  stage. 


86  J^y  -'^^r>  i^y- 

The  partners  made  no  secret  of  their  method,  and  the  result 
was  so  gratifying  to  the  public  that  they  soon  found  imitators. 
In  this  way  the  practice  of  oratory  became,  like  the  Stage,  a 
regular  and  liberal  profession,  and  one  that  persons  of  position 
and  culture  were  not  ashamed  to  follow.  And  we  now  possess 
a  class  of  professional  orators,  always  ready,  for  a  fee,  to  stand 
up  and  deliver  a  speech  on  any  question,  or  side  of  a  question, 
required,  it  being  well  understood  that  they  are  responsible 
neither  for  the  Avords  or  the  sentiments,  but  are  mere  machines 
of  eloquence  and  grace.  To  them  the  vast  audiences  of  modern 
times  are  indebted  for  many  an  intellectual  treat,  of  which,  but 
for  such  addition  to  the  author's  function,  they  would  be  alto- 
gether deprived. 

The  convenience  of  the  system  at  length  procured  its  intro- 
duction into  Parliament  and  the  Church ;  and  so  it  has  come 
to  be  no  unusual  thing  for  a  minister  of  state  to  have  his  ora- 
torical secretary,  whom  he  deputes  to  deliver  his  speeches  in 
the  Legislature ;  or  a  teacher,  his  deputy  in  the  pulpit,  or  on 
the  platform. 

Sometimes  a  party  of  orators  combine  to  give  an  exhibition 
of  their  skill,  and  few  exhibitions  prove  more  attractive  than 
such  a  performance,  or  more  valuable  as  an  educational  agency. 
Our  co-opei-ative  artisan  classes  have  always  taken  especial 
delight  in  them.  They  say  it  is  the  best  way  of  learning 
histor3^ 

On  the  evening  of  my  presence  for  the  first  time  at  one  of 
these  contests,  the  subject  for  the  recitations  was  an  ancient 
parliamentary  debate,  partly  real  and  partly  imaginary,  in  the 
upper  chamber  of  the  Legislature  towards  the  triumphant  close 
of  the  great  emancipation  controversy  in  the  Victorian  era. 

It  was  with  no  slight  uneasiness  that  I  found  myself  compelled 
to  witness  a  performance  which  was  strictly  prohibited  by  the 
rules  of  the  Remnant  /  but  as  I  was  not  a  transgressor  by 
intention,  and  could  not  get  out  except  by  being  hoisted  over 
the  heads  of  a  mass  of  people, — an  operation  from  which  my 
retiring  disposition  made  me  shrink, — I  reluctantly  acquiesced 
in  mv  fate.  • 


BY  AND  BY.  87 

The  first  speech,  however,  served,  to  reconcile  me  to  my  posi- 
tion. The  precise  subject  for  the  evening  was,  Tlie  Church  : 
should  it  he  loosened  from  the  State,  to  follow  its  own  tradi- 
tions, or  should  it  be  made  that  which  it  has  since  actually 
become — a  national,  rather  than  a  denominational,  institution 
— and  retained  as  a  department  of  the  State. 

The  leader  of  the  discussion  opened  with  a  speech  which 
completely  satisfied  me,  so  convincing  on  my  side  of  the  ques- 
tion did  his  arguments  appear.  He  took  the  line  that,  the 
Church  being  altogether  a  Christian  institution,  and  Christian- 
ity consisting  of  dogmas,  to  deprive  the  Church  of  its  dogmatic 
basis  would  be  to  un-Christianize  it.  The  secular  power  of 
course  was  not  competent  to  judge  of  dogmas ;  it  must  there- 
fore leave  the  Church  sole  mistress  of  itself.  If  the  connection 
between  them  was  to  be  maintained,  it  was  for  the  benefit  of 
the  State,  for  the  Church  needed  it  not.  She  preferred  to  be 
independent.  Only,  under  either  alternative  she  must  I'etain 
her  possessions.     To  deprive  her  of  these  would  be  a  fraud. 

After  this  clear  statement  of  the  case  for  the  Church,  I 
breathed  more  freely,  and  felt  indifferent  as  to  what  might  be 
said  on  the  other  side. 

But  I  was  perplexed  by  the  heartiness  of  the  cheers  which 
greeted  the  orator ;  even  at  the  points  which  told  most  against 
the  popular  view  of  the  day — the  view  which  I  knew  to  be 
probably  unshared  by  a  single  person  present  except  myself. 
I  tried,  therefore,  to  think  that  it  was  the  orator,  not  the  argu- 
ments, for  whom  the  applause  was  given.  Of  the  beauty  of 
method  in  statement,  I  was  then  altogether  ignorant. 

The  progress  of  the  debate  made  me  very  uncomfortable. 
The  tone  of  it  was  admirable  in  its  elevation,  and  wonderfully 
illustrative  of  the  difficulties  through  which  our  ancestors  had 
to  steer  their  way.  I  began  to  feel  more  tolerant  of  my  oppo- 
nents, now  that  for  the  first  time  I  was  enabled  to  comprehend 
somewhat  of  their  stand-point.  I  experienced,' too,  a  certain 
twinge  of  bitterness  at  having  been  .so  long  shut  out  from  the 
advantages  enjoyed  by  my  fellow-citizens.  For  the  first  time 
the  real  history  of  my  country  began  to  unfold  itself  to  me.     It 


88  BY  AND  BY. 

was  very  curious  to  see  how  completely  the  attention  of  the 
vast  audience  became  engrossed  by  the  merits,  not  of  the  rival 
orators,  but  of  the  controversy  itself.  The  assembly  seemed  to 
have  receded  from  the  present,  and  to  be  composed  in  reality  of 
tories  and  radicals,  churchmen,  nonconformists,  positivists,  and 
all  the  other  strangely  nomenclatured  sects  of  those  ages.  And 
they  shouted  their  assent  and  their  dissent  as  eagerly  as 
ancient  records  tell  us  used  to  be  done  in  the  Legislature 
itself ;  though  of  course  without  the  vocal  excesses,  savoring 
of  the  farm-3'ard,  which  disfigured  those  ruder  times. 

I  was  already  in  a  state  of  intense  mental  conflict  when  the 
new  orator  rose  to  produce  what  was  expected  to  be  the  sensa- 
tion of  the  evening.  Should  this  story  ever  come  under  the 
eyes  of  any  who  are  still  in  the  bondage  that  afHicted  ray 
youth,  they  will  comprehend  and  share  the  anguish  I  felt  on 
first  hearing  it  seriously  asserted  and  plausibly  argued  that  our 
dearly  cherished  religion  is  a  mode  of  life,  and  not  a  set  of 
opinions !  and  that  whatever  it  be,  whether  practical  or  doc- 
trinal, if  it  be  not  capable  of  development  and  adaptation  by 
modification,  it  cannot  be  divine  or  suited  to  humanity ;  inas- 
much as  the  divine  life  of  the  universe,  of  which  man  is  a  por- 
tion, is  ever  advancing  towards  loftier  capacities  and  more  com- 
plex conditions. 

Well,  at  length  it  came  to  the  turn  of  the  man  of  the  even- 
ing. Little  availed  the  buzz  of  curiosity  round  me  to  remind 
me  that  the  debate  was  but  a  recitation,  and  no  real  conflict  of 
opinions.  Like  a  half-drawn  tooth,  I  was  too  far  gone  to  be 
recalled.  The  process  could  not  be  stayed  there.  Of  the  new 
orator  himself  I  can  say  little.  My  inability  to  describe 
him,  or  his  style,  is  perhaps  the  best  testimony  to  his  power. 
Under  the  first  strong  impressions  analysis  fails.  The  maidens 
of  old,  when  visited  by  a  god  in  their  sleep,  did  not  forget  their 
rapture  to  note  the  details  of  the  interview.  At  least,  the  rap- 
ture must  have  been  very  much  qualified  to  admit  of  their 
taking  such  notes. 

In  a  few  short  sentences  he  dismissed  much  of  what  had 
been  said  as  worthier  of  a  council  of  ecclesiastics,  than  of  a  na- 
tional senate. 


BY  AND   LT.  89 

"  Our  function,"  he  said,  turning  to  his  fc41o\v-orators  who 
sat  upon  tlie  platform,  looking  wonderfully  like  a  real  senate, 
"  our  function  is  not  to  discover  abstract  truth,  or  determine 
historical  problems,  but  to  do  justice  and  prevent  spoliation." 

Now  when  he  said  this,  I  thought,  why  he  is  going  to  speak 
on  my  side,  for  if  ever  there  was  a  case  of  injustice  and  spolia- 
tion, it  was  when  the  legislature  turned  the  Church  out  of  the 
Establishment,  and  appropriated  its  property  to  other  uses. 

"  Whatever  religion  be  the  tru,e  one,"  he  continued,  "  it  cannot 
be  incompatible  with  honesty  and  justice.  And  it  is  not  honesty, 
not  justice,  to  take  from  a  nation  that  which  it  has  set  apart 
for  the  whole,  and  give  it  over  to  a  sect  which  comprises  but  a 
part.  Thus,  the  first  question  we  have  to  deal  with  is  not 
one  of  disestablishment,  not  one  even  of  reform,  but  one  of 
ownership.  Who  is  it  that  is  entitled  to  have  a  voice  in 
the  management  and  direction  of  the  Church,  or  of  any  reforn^ 
to  be  made  in  it  ?  " 

And  then  he  went  on  to  answer  this  question  in  terms  which 
I  can  but  indicate,  without  any  claim  adequately  to  reproduce 
the  original,  or  describe  their  effect. 

"  I,  sir,"  he  said,  "  speaking  neither  as  Churchman,  nor  as 
Nonconformist,  but  as  a  simple  citizen,  utterly  rejmdiate  the 
notion  that  this,  our  National  Institution  for  promoting,  not 
the  suppression  of  Thought,  but  the  highest  welfare  of  our 
whole  people, — (for  such  is  my  definition  of  a  State-Church,) — 
is  in  any  sense  whatever  the  rightful  exclusive  property  of  that 
limited  company  which  at  present  sits  within  and  enjoys  the 
monopoly  of  it,  holding  fast  the  door  in  the  faces  of  the  rest  of 
their  fellow-citizens — even  of  us,  who  stand  without  and  knock, 
seeking  in  vain  for  admission,  or  else  turn  away  in  disgust,  and 
resign  ourselves  hopelessly  to  our  exclusion.  No — as  a  citizen 
I  claim  this  noble  appanage  of  the  Established  Church,  this 
splendid  and  far-reaching  organization,  this  affluence  of  re- 
source, this  accumulation  of  prestige,  as  Ours  !  ours  to  use  and 
enjoy,  ours  to  preserve  and  amend,  ours  to  hand  down  as  a 
fair  inheritance  to  our  posterity,  in  the  highest  degree  of 
efficiency  to  which  we  can  raise  it.     It  is  not  that  we  have  out- 


90  P^y  ^l-V7)    BY. 

grown  all  noed  of  such  an  institution.  The  fact  tliat  we  liave 
calk'tl  into  existence,  or  are  actively  maintaining,  numerous 
private  institutions  of  a  similar  character,  proves  that  day  to 
be  still  far  distant.  It  is  not  that  its  shortcomings  are  due  to 
its  connection  with  the  State.  As  well  might  the  shortcomings 
of  the  Police,  the  Railways,  or  the  Post  Office,  be  ascribed  to 
their  connection  with  the  State.  No,  the  shortcomings  of  which 
we  complain  in  the  Established  Church  are  due  solely  and  ex- 
clusively to  the  self-imposed  limitations  of  that  body  to  which 
the  State  has  committed  the  management  and  control  of  the 
dej)artment.  Namely,  those  limitations  upon  opinion  and 
expression  which  have  led  to  the  exclusion  of  more  than  one- 
half  of  the  people,  and  at  least  nine-tenths  of  the  intelli- 
gence, of  the  country,  from  participating  in  its  conduct  and 
advantages. 

"  We  hear,"  he  continued,  after  a  brief  pause,  "  those  who 
affect  to  be  friends  of  liberty,  demanding  what  they  are  pleased 
to  call  the  liberation  of  religion  from  State  control.  Liberty ! 
What  a  spell  must  lie  in  that  word,  when  even  its  enemies 
venture  to  conjure  with  it !  Fancy  the  man  bound  hand  and 
foot,  a  willing  slave,  to  religious  dogma,  pretending  to  wish  to 
'  liberate  religion  ! '  You  all  know  what  it  is  we  mean  by  Papist. 
But  away  with  these  old  terms.  They  mean  nothing  now. 
There  are  Protestant  papists  as  well  as  Catholic  papists.  The 
contest  is  now  not  between  Romanism  and  Protestantism.  It 
is  between  Dogmatism  and  Science ;  between  Credulity  and 
Knowledge  ;  between  Assumption  and  Proof  ;  between  Dream- 
ing and  Waking ;  between  Slavery  and  Freedom.  For  an 
organization  which  rests  upon  a  dogmatic  basis,  to  demand 
exemption  from  State-control,  is  for  a  tyrant  to  demand  liberty 
that  he  maj^  be  free  to  impose  a  heavier  bondage. 

"  No,  no,  there  is  but  one  way  of  liberating  religion,  of 
nationalizing  the  Church-establishment.  Let  the  State,  for 
that  alone  is  competent  for  the  task,  abolish  all  limitation  of 
Article,  Test,  and  Creed,  which  serve  but  to  close  the  human 
soul  to  the  divine  voice  speaking  through  man's  developed 
mind  and  conscience.     Let  it  abolish  these  barriers,  which  were 


BY   AND  BY.  91 

reared  in  the  dark  ages  of  the  past,  and  put  Humanity  in  direct 
rapport  with  its  Maker.  In  place  of  a  caste  and  a  sect  of 
narrowly-educated  perfunctionaries,  let  all  good  and  capable 
men  be  free  to  speak  to  their  fellows  that  which  the  universe 
has  revealed  to  them  concerning  itself.  Then,  and  then  only, 
shall  we  he  free  to  hearken  to  the  voice  of  that  Spirit  of  Truth- 
fulness of  which  long  ago  it  was  declared  that,  when  it  is 
come,  it  will  guide  us  into  all  truth." 

I  was  fast  being  vanquished,  when  he  proceeded  to  describe 
the  results  of  the  opposite  course,  and  showed  the  danger  that 
would  inevitably  accrue  to  the  State  by  erecting  in  its  midst  a 
vast  power  like  the  Establishment,  bound  by  virtue  of  its  tra- 
ditions for  evermore  to  crush  the  souls  of  men  beneath  a  load 
of  incomprehensible  and  unverifiable  statements,  and  restrain 
the  development  of  that  very  intellect  and  moral  sense  upon 
which  the  State  itself  subsisted.  The  proposed  rival  scheme 
of  Disestablishment  he  denounced  as  being  thus  a  suicide  for 
the  State,  and  a  robbery  for  the  nation,  inasmuch  as  it  would 
involve  the  transfer  of  an  organization  and  appliances  invalu- 
able for  the  nation's  educational  uses,  to  a  sect  comprising 
but  a  fragment  of  the  nation,  and  vowed* to  repress  the  devel- 
opment of  the  national  mind.  "  Let  it  not  be  for  nothing,"  he 
said,  "  that  we  once  dared  to  use  Ireland  as  a  corpus  vile  on 
which  to  experiment  for  our  own  benefit.  The  statesman  who 
robbed  Ireland  of  its  national  Establishment,  and  endowed  a 
sect  with  the  proceeds,  has  other  claims  to  the  national  grati- 
tude.    For  this,  he  has  none." 

After  a  rapidly  sketched  comparison  between  England  torn 
by  religious  factions,  and  oppressed  by  dogmas  and  traditions, 
and  England  united  and  free,  he  concluded  by  asking,  in  the 
words  of  one  who  in  that  age  was  regarded  as  being  at  once-  poet 
and  prophet : — 

"  Is  it  never  to  be  true  that  '  God  fulfils  himself  in  many 
ways  ?  '  If  so,  if  the  Church  is  to  declare  that  He  shall  fulfil 
Himself  in  but  one  way,  and  that  the  Church's  way, — that  is, 
if  He  is  to  be  prevented  from  'fulfilling  Himself  at  all,  let  us 
leave   the  Church  asit  is,  or  rather,  let  us  raise  higher  its  bar- 


92  BY  AND  BY. 

riers,  and  strengthen  its  chains ;  let  us  stereotype  our  minds 
and  consciences  into  dull  inanimate  uniformity,  and  sink  re- 
signedly to  the  monotonous  level  and  torpid  existence  of  marsh 
monsters;  but  no  longer  let  us  flatter  ourselves  that  we  are 
made  in  the  image  of  Him  who  loves  to  'fulfil  himself  in  many 
ways.'  Lacking  such  faith  in  the  All-Living  and  All-Being,  it 
is  the  Church;  not  the  world,  that  is  Atheist." 

After  the  conclusion  of  the  recitations,  I  sat  absorbed  in  my 
reflections,  heedless  of  the  buzz  and  tramp  of  the  departing 
crowd  ;  heedless  even  of  the  darkness  in  which  the  hall  was  fast 
being  wrapped,  through  the  withdrawal  of  the  lights.  So  real 
for  me  had  been  the  whole  scene  and  controversy,  that  it  seemed 
as  if  the  ages  had  rolled  back,  and  I  was  an  interested  partaker 
in  the  conflicts  of  the  past.  But,  far  back,  in  one  respect,  as 
the  ages  seemed  to  have  rolled,  in  another  respect  they  had 
made  a  wondrous  advance.  The  change  in  me  was  as  great 
and  profound  as  that  which  passes  over  a  woman  between  the 
day  before  and  the  da}'^  after  her  marriage.  I  felt  that  I  could 
never  become  again  as  I  had  been.  The  leprous  scales  of  big- 
otry and  sectarianism'  had  dropped  from  me,  and  I  was  now  a 
citizen  and  a  free  man.  And  more  than  this.  I  felt  that  it 
might  yet  be  possible  for  the  god  of  this  world  to  be  other  than 
the  devil.  I  looked  round  for  some  one  to  greet  as  brother,  I 
who  had  ever  been  walled-up  in  the  pharisaism'  of  orthodoxy  ! 

At  this  moment  a  light  step,  coming  from  the  room  whither 
the  orators  had  retired  after  the  contest,  approached,  and 
stopped  by  me.  Looking  wistfully  up,  I  beheld  a  face  bent 
upon  mine,  a  face  such  as  I  had  never  before  seen  except  in 
ancient  paintings.  It  was  the  face  of  a  man  about  double  my 
own  age — I  was  about  sixteen — -and  beautiful  exceedingly,  it 
seemed  to  me  upon  reflection,  for  at  the  moment  I  was  conscious 
of  nothing  beyond  the  glance  of  the  most  mysterious,  and  pene- 
trating, yet  kindest  eyes,  which,  as  it  were,  took  in  my  whole 
being,  and  made  all  self-revelation  superfluous.  Then  a  voice, 
low,  measured,  distinct,  and  unutterably  symjjathetic,  said  to 
me: 


BY  AND  BY.  93 

"  My  young  friend, — pardon  my  freedom  in  addressing  you, 
— I  sat  near  you  this  evening,  and  read  all  that  passed  in  your 
soul.  The  times  of  which  we  have  been  hearing  were  the 
grandest  in  their  issues  that  the  world  has  seen.  Had  you  and 
I  lived  then,  how  eagerly  would  we  have  thrown  ourselves  into 
the  conflict,  and  struck  for  God  and  Humanity!  What  were 
ever  the  battles  of  flesh  and  blood  compared  to  that  tremendous 
conflict  of  principles,  which  hajipily  for  us  resulted  in  the 
Emancipation  ?     You  feel  this,  now,  at  last  ?  " 

Won  by  his  look  and  tone,  I  said, — 

"Ah,  sir,  what  then  becomes  of  the  Revelation  ?  " 

"  My  friend,"  he  replied  solemnly,  "  so  long  as  there  exist 
God  and  a  soul,  there  will  be  a  revelation,  but  the  soul  must  be 
a  free  one." 

I  make  no  answer,  and  he  added, — 

"  I  must  not  aggravate  the  impertinence  of  which  I  have 
already  been  guilty  in  addressing  you,  by  withholding  my 
name,  though  I  am  satisfied  you  do  not  consider  it  one.  Here 
is  my  card,  and  if  ever  you  desire  to  improve  our  acquaintance, 
or  think  I  can  serve  you,  seek  me  out.     Good  night." 

On  the  card  was  C.  Carol,  Triangle.  It  was  not  until  long 
afterwards  that  I  saw  him  again. 


<  »«»  > 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Nationalization  of  the  Church  Establishment — achieved 
as  it  was  by  the  practical  sense  of  the  English  people,  and  in 
spite  of  those  who  loudly  clamored  for  a  policy  of  severance  or 
destruction, — proved  to  be  the  gateway  of  the  Emancipation. 
By  it  religion,  education  and  society  were  at  once  set  free  to  re- 
model themselves  in  accordance  with  the  perceptions  and  needs 
of  the  age.  The  desire  to  separate  the  Church  from  the  State, 
vanished  entirely  so  soon  as  the  department  was  thrown  open 
and  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  people.    Kow,  for  the  first  time 


94  BY  AND  BY. 

in  the  history  of  the  world,  was  tliere  a  really  free  church,  and 
it  was  to  the  scientific  spirit  that  the  achievement  was  due — the 
spirit  that  said  that  if  a  thing  were  true  and  necessary  to  be 
received,  men  could  always  hold  it  in  virtue  of  its  demonstra- 
bility  and  usefulness,  so  that  dogma  was  a  mischievous  super- 
fluity. Under  the  accession  of  a  new  bond  of  citizenship,  the 
vast  majority  of  the  dissenting  sects  brought  their  wealth  of 
organization  and  appliances,  their  learning  and  their  zeal,  and 
added  them  to  the  common  national  stock.  The  "  religious 
difficulty,"  as  I  have  already  explained,  vanished,  and  thence- 
forward Church  and  School  worked  together  in  the  common 
cause  of  universal  education,  and  upon  a  common  basis ;  for 
there  was  no  longer  a  conflict  between  faith  and  knowledge, 
religion  and  science,  theology  and  moials — except,  of  course,  in 
the  little  clique  to  which  I  belonged,  arrogantly  self-styled 
The  Remnant.  In  the  newly-constituted  National  Church,  the 
State  insisted  that  in  order  to  be  teachers,  men  must  be  edu- 
cated up  to  a  certain  standard.  Upon  that  basis  they  were  free 
to  rear  their  own  fabric  of  thought. 

Thus  the  Emancipation  consisted  in  the  substitution  of  ex- 
perimental and  intuitional  morality  for  the  old  traditional  sys- 
tem. This  involved  the  release  of  women  from  their  previous 
condition  of  social  dependence.  The  adoption  by  them  of 
several  new  modes  of  living  was  the  instantaneous  result  of 
their  enfranchisement.  And  from  the  first  the  experiment  was 
found  to  work  better  than  even  its  advocates  had  anticipated, 
multitudes  of  persons  who  had  hitherto  lived  together  un- 
married, eagerly  entering  into  contracts  recognizable  by  the 
State,  and  thereby  legitimatizing  their  children.  Indeed,  the 
proportion  that  abused  their  newly-won  liberty  was  almost 
inappreciable,  and  these  few  would  doubtless  have  proved  fail- 
ures under  any  system.  Moreover,  being  made  far  easier  of 
attainment  through  the  relaxation  of  its  conditions,  marriage 
ceased  to  be  an  object  of  morbid  desire.  Women  had  some- 
thing else  to  occupy  their  thoughts,  and  were  more  frequently 
content  to  follow  other  careers.  Girls  were  brought  up  to  look 
upon  it  as  a  thing  that  might  some  day  overtake  them  as  an 


BY  AND  BY.  95 

accident,  more  or  less  liappy,  but  in  no  wise  as  their  sole  des- 
tiny, to  miss  which  would  be  to  fail  in  life.  Our  ancient 
customs  in  regard  to  women  were  such  that  we  can  hardly  refer 
to  them  without  a  blush :  so  fatal  to  their  morals  was  apt  to  be 
the  struggle  to  secure  their  virtue.  The  Emancipation  changed 
all  this.  It  reinstated  Modesty  in  the  high  place  so  long 
monopolized  by  mere  Chastity.  And,  woman  having  learnt 
to  respect  herself,  man,  no  longer  a  prey  hunted  and  scared, 
learned  to  respect  her  also. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  some  cases  the  consciousness  of 
freedom  produced  an  astringent  effect  upon  manners.  For 
instance,  previously  to  the  removal  of  the  prohibition  against 
the  intermarriage  of  brothers-in-law  and  sisters-in-law,  such 
marriages  were  exceedingly  frequent,  but  since  that  event  they 
have  rarely  or  never  occurred.  Kot  that  there  is  anything 
against  them,  but  it  is  a  notable  commentary  on  the  principle 
of  artificial  restraints,  to  find  that  the  restraint  itself  operated 
against  itself.  It  was  the  intimacy  fostered  under  cover  of  the 
legal  fiction  of  relationship  between  persons  so  situated,  that 
produced  the  desire  for  a  closer  connection.  When  there  was 
no  longer  any  law  against  a  man's  marrying  his  wife's  sister, 
such  sister  could  no  longer  enter  her  brother-in-law's  house, 
except  on  the  same  terms  of  distance  which  regulated  his  inter- 
course with  other  women.  There  was  thus  no  longer  the 
attraction  so  apt  to  be  engendered  of  custom  and  propinquity. 
There  is  yet  another  variety  in  our  mode  of  marrying  to 
which  reference  must  be  made,  as  it  is  that  Avhich  was  adopted 
by  Susanna  Avenil.  Her  marriage  was  not  only  of  the  third 
class,  but  it  was  of  that  class  and  the  separate  system  com- 
bined. Though  married,  she  did  not  live  with  her  husband. 
These  marriages  are  far  from  rare,  and  their  origin  is  somewhat 
curious.  It  had  from  time  immemorial  been  an  almost  univer- 
sal practice  of  girls,  and  even  of  grown  women,  of  independent 
means  and  gentle  nurture,  to  surround  themselves  with  pet 
animals,  upon  which  they  were  proud  to  be  seen  expending 
their  tenderest  sympathies.  Scarce  a  maiden  lady  in  Britain 
but  possessed  one  or  more  of  these  creatures,  whom  she  main- 
tained at  great  expense  of  feeling  and  money. 


f)6  BY  AND  BY. 

At  length,  some  time  after  the  Emancipation,  some  ingenious - 
and  benevolent  person,  seeing  how  many  destitute  children  the 
country  still  contained  in  its  streets  and  other  asylums,  pro- 
posed to  place  a  heavy  tax  on  all  animals  which  were  kept  for 
luxury  and  not  for  use,  but  to  convert  it  into  a  premium  where 
the  pet  in  question  was  an  adopted  destitute  child. 

The  suggestion  was  favorably  received  by  the  then  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  a  supposed  descendant  of  the  once  famous 
occupant  of  that  office  who  excited  boundless  ridicule  and 
wrath  by  a  proposal  to  tax  certain  indispensable  machines  for 
procuring  light  and  fire,  called  Matches.  Many  a  sly  innu- 
endo was  launched  to  the  effect  that  the  new  tax  now  pro- 
posed might  operate  as  a  set-off  to  the  previous  one,  by  its 
tendency  to  multiply  matches,  a  poor  joke  indeed,  yet  not  at 
the  time  deemed  too  poor  to  find  frequent  utterance.  The 
suggestion,  however,  was  adopted,  and  many  a  pet  beast  was 
discarded  in  favor  of  an  adopted  youth  or  damsel.  Young 
women  who  lived  and  worked  alone,  were  found  especially 
willing  to  take  upon  themselves  the  charge  of  some  destitute 
child.  And  such  was  the  independence  of  spirit  which  they 
acquired  under  the  Emancipation,  that  they  boldly  faced  the 
charges  brought  against  them  by  some  of  their  more  conser- 
vative fellow-citizens  with  the  answer, — 

"  Well,  and  why  not  ?  If  we  choose  to  exercise  our  mater- 
nal sympathies  without  parting  with  our  liberty,  why  should 
we  not  do  so?" 

Tradition  being  discarded,  there  were  no  grounds  on  which 
to  found  a  remonstrance.  Parents  could  not  complain,  for  their 
daughters,  no  longer  dependent  upon  them,  had  ceased  to 
encumber  the  paternal  roof.  They  were  free  also  from  the 
obligation  of  making  marriage  settlements,  and  providing 
costly  trousseaux.  It  is  even  said  that  the  young  women 
themselves,  finding  themselves  prized  for  their  more  solid 
qualities,  came  to  place  less  value  upon  their  dress — dress, 
that  supreme  temptation  of  the  sex,  before  which  even  our 
mother  Eve  is  represented  as  having  succumbed:  for  with 
her  perfections  she  must  have  foreseen  thus  much  of  the 
consequences  of  her  disastrous  action. 


BT  AND  BY.  97 

It  is  true  that  there  had  as  yet  heen  no  experience  to  justify 
the  practice.  But  life  has  room  for  varieties,  and  experience 
said  Tr7/.  And  so  the  women  of  England,  considering  that  all 
social  expedients  are  necessarily  the  result  of  experiment,  did 
try;  and  not  heing  degraded  hy  the  consciousness  that  their 
unions  were  unrecognized  by  the  law,  succeeded  beyond  their 
most  sanguine  anticipations.  For  the  men,  finding  them  wor- 
thier of  their  love  and  confidence  in  their  new-born  independence 
and  consequent  elevation  of  character,  offered  themselves  far 
more  readily  as  partners  in  the  higher  classes  of  marriage  than 
in  any  period  of  our  history.  Indeed,  to  have  already  proved 
her  qualifications  as  a  tender  and  judicious  mother,  came  to  be 
regarded  by  men  of  sense  as  a  woman's  strongest  recommenda- 
tion for  marriage  ;  and  the  question  they  asked  was,  not  "  Is 
she  already  a  mother  ?  "  but  "  What  sort  of  a  mother  is  she  ?  " 

It  is  thus  that  modern  society  has  escaped  the  evil  which 
once  constituted  the  greatest  blot  upon  our  social  system.  'No 
longer  called  upon  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  to  sell  them- 
selves either  with  or  without  marriage  for  the  means  of  exist- 
ence, women  now  give  themselves  only  where  they  have  already 
given  their  affections.  Those  affections  being,  by  virtue  of 
their  very  nature,  not  readily  transferable,  sexual  vagabondage 
is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  its  evils  are  altogether  abrogated. 

Inheriting  the  strongly  marked  independence  of  character 
belonging  to  her  race,  Susanna  Avenil  was  one  of  those  women 
who  valued  liberty  above  love,  and  placed  her  own  individu- 
ality and  work  before  her  affections.  She  felt  that  as  a  woman 
she  had  a  right  to  complete  herself,  and  she  regarded  no  human 
being  as  complete  until  he  or  she  had  become  a  parent.  In  her 
own  case,  it  was  a  duty  owed  to  the  race,  as  well  as  to  herself ; 
a  duty  from  which,  had  she  been  weakly  in  bodyor  brain,  she 
would  have  considered  herself  exempt;  or,  rather,  her  duty 
would  have  lain  the  other  way.  The  lowest  types  and  worst 
specimens  of  humanity,  she  argued,  are  sure  to  breed ;  so  that 
if  the  best  abstain,  the  world  will  soon  be  given  up  to  the 
worst,  and  the  struggle  for  existence  will  end  in  the  survival  of 
the  least  fit. 
7 


98  BY  AXD  BY. 

Her  brother  used  to  twit  her  by  declaring  that  if  she  had  her 
wa}',  all  the  links  would  soon  be  missing  which  connected  man 
with  his  rudimentary  basis.  Already  had  the  ape,  the  savage, 
and  the  negro  nearly  disappeared,  each  in  turn  thrust  out  of 
existence  b}'  the  race  just  above  it,  and  she  would  still  further 
widen  the  gap  by  eliminating  the  inferior  specimens  of  the 
higher  types. 

It  was  Avithout  a  particle  of  vanity  that  she  regarded  her 
own  noble  development  of  constitution  and  form.  She  had 
inherited  them,  and  it  was  no  merit  of  hers  to  have  them.  But 
the  inheritance  brought  a  duty  with  it.  Having  inherited,  she 
must  transmit  them.  It  was  only  by  repaying  to  posterity  the 
debt  owed  to  her  ancestry,  that  she  would  deserve  well  of  her 
kind. 

The  old-fashioned  domestic  life  had  no  charm  for  her.  She 
deemed  it  fatal  to  independence  and  individuality  ;  and  scorned, 
as  an  oriental  extravagance,  the  notion  that  it  is  a  woman's 
chief  end  to  minister  to  the  comfort  of  a  man.  She  scorned 
also  ti\e  man  who  wanted  such  comfort.  People  had  said  that 
although  so  fine  a  creature,  she  was  of  a  hard  nature.  But  a 
time  came  when  she  appeared  to  them  to  soften.  She  had 
exj^erienced  a  grief,  a  mortification,  and  for  some  time  held  her 
head  less  high  than  had  been  her  wont.  Had  she  been  crossed 
in  love  ?  No ;  the  man  with  whom  she  had  entered  into 
matrimonial  partnership  had  exhibited  no  sj^mptom  of  indiffer- 
ence to  her.  He  was  a  noble  fellosv,  but  she  had  failed  to  be- 
come a  mother,  and  the  failure  was  to  her  a  bitter  sorrow.  She 
feared  that,  after  all,  she  was  not  to  be  a  complete  woman,  and 
at  this  thought  her  stately  head  drooped.  The  terms  of  her 
contract  made  a  severance  easy,  even  had  the  legislature  not 
regarded  childlessness  as  a  valid  plea.  Their  compact  had 
been  one  into  which  but  little  of  sentiment,  as  commonly 
understood,  entered.  Mingling  with  his  feeling  of  profound 
respect  for  her  nobility  of  character,  was  a  regret  on  the  score 
of  the  too  business-like  nature  of  her  disposition.  Her  temper- 
ature could  not  rise  to  the  level  of  such  love  as  was  likely  to 
prove  creative. 


BY  AND  BT.  99 

At  least,  such  was  his  theory.  As  for  himself,  he  soon  mar- 
ried again,  and  then  came  a  new  mortification  for  Susanna. 
It  did  not  consist  in  that  which  ordinarily  constitutes  a  humili- 
ation for  women.  She  knew  not  how  to  be  jealous.  But  in 
his  new  association  her  late  husband  became  a  father. 

At  length  she  gathered  courage  to  try  again.  This  time,  to 
her  joy  and  pride,  she  had  the  success  for  which  she  pined. 
It  seemed  then  as  if  nature  had  reversed  its  usual  order  of 
sequence.  Love  for  her  children  was  followed  by  love  for  their 
father.  Under  this  feeling  she  wished  to  renounce  the  principle 
upon  which  she  had  dwelt  apart  from  him  in  a  home  of  her  own, 
with  independent  establishment  and  liabilities,  and  follow  the 
ordinary  domestic  usage.  She  was  ready  even  to  encounter 
the  taunts  and  reprobation  of  the  party  of  whose  tenets  she 
was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  exponents.  Disapproving  of 
the  familiar  intimacy  of  ordinary  married  folk,  as  ministering 
to  indifference  and  contempt,  the  conception  which  this  party 
had  of  wedlock  was  that  of  men  and  women  dwelling  apart 
from  each  other,  like  gods  and  goddesses  on  the  peaks  of  Olym- 
pus, always  on  their  good  behavior,  and  seeing  each  other  only 
at  their  best.  In  accordance  with  this  idea  Susanna  had  been 
"  content  to  dwell  in  decencies  for  ever,"  »<i  an  old  poet  hath 
it, — however  unsatisfying  to  the  heart, — isolated  and  dignified, 
and  receiving  the  visits  of  her  consort  in  cold  and  formal  state. 
When  she  now  signified  her  readiness  to  abandon  the  separate 
sj^stem,  she  found  an  unexpected  obstacle  in  her  husband  him- 
self. He  had  not  belonged  to  her  party,  but  being  a  truly 
conscientious  man,  he  declared  he  could  not  accept  the  respon- 
sibility of  making  her  infidel  to  the  tenets  of  her  life.  They 
had  got  on  admirably  together  so  far,  and  it  would  be  a  thou- 
sand pities  to  risk  all  by  seeing  more  of  each  other.  He  even 
said  something  about  it  being  a  "tempting  of  Providence." 
It  is  believed  that  he  fully  intended  to  come  round  in  time,  but 
that  Susanna — to  whom  he  was  really  attached — would  be  the 
happier  afterwards  for  his  seeming  reluctance.  It  was  with 
much  amusement  that  her  friends  were  watching  the  progress 
of    her    perversion,    when    unfortunately   her    husband    died. 


100  BT  AND  BY. 

Susanna  was  long  inconsolable ;  but  as  her  children  grew  np 
and  flourished  under  her  sole  direction,  she  gradually  became 
reconciled  to  her  bereavement,  and  forgot  how  nearly  her  heart 
had  betrayed  her  into  turning  renegade  to  her  most  cherished 
•principles.  It  was  thus  that  her  own  experience  served  to 
confirm  her  belief  in  the  soundness  of  her  views  respecting 
the  relations  of  the  sexes;  at  least,  for  persons  of  her  own 
temperament. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


As  Christmas  Carol  approached  manhood,  he  manifested 
certain  tendencies  which  ofttimes  indicated  to  his  friends  a 
sympathy  with  the  Remnant  and  its  doctrines.  Cultivating  an 
ideal  in  accordance  with  his  own  strongly  religious  tempera- 
ment, and  regarding  love  as  a  deep  devotion  and  life-worship, 
involving  the  gathering  up  of  all  the  relations  and  clues  of 
being,  and  casting  them  at  the  feet  of  the  beloved  object, — he 
hardly  could  bring  himself  to  recognize  as  capable  of  love  at  all 
those  to  whom  it  was  a  diversion  and  an  amusement,  a  pleasant 
pastime  for  occasional  indulgence,  and  capable  of  transference 
from  one  object  to  another.  Even  the  frequent  companionship 
of  the  Avenils,  who  found  other  engrossments  more  absorbing 
than  those  of  the  affections,  and  consequently  respected  the 
light  and  changeable  of  heart,  rather  than  those  for  whom  love 
was  the  supreme  passion,  failed  to  operate  as  a  corrective  to 
Criss's  tendency  to  intolerance  on  this  subject. 

He  did  not,  however,  imitate  the  Renuiant,  and  condemn 
people  for  having  dispositions  and  principles  different  to  his 
own.  But  he  could  not  help  wishing  that  nature  had  in  this 
respect  made  everybody  more  like  himself. 

The  Avenils  held,  and  not  without  reason,  that  Criss's  ad- 
diction to  a  contemplative  life  served  to  foster  an  ideal  which 
bore  little  relation  to  the  real.     It  was  his  wont,  whenever  the 


BY   AND  BY.  101 

real,  either  in  act  or  in  word,  jarred  on  him,  to  jump  into  his 
Ariel,  sajang, — 

"  I  shall  go  and  lose  the  taste  of  it  in  the  society  of  my 
angels." 

And  presently  he  would  be  soaring  far  above  the  clouds,  in 
regions  whei-e — for  ordinary  eyes — all  was  blank  and  still ;  but 
which  for  him  contained  sweet  sights  and  exquisite  sounds ;  for 
his  ideal  became  real,  and  heaven  opened  itself  to  him. 

"Is  it  not  very  lonely  up  there?"  asked  one  of  the  Avenil 
girls  of  Criss,  on  his  return  from  a  long  flight. 

He  was  in  a  more  communicative  mood  than  usual.  And  the 
girls  left  their  various  occupations,  and  gathered  round  him 
while  he  held  forth. 

"  Lonely  up  there  !  Oh  no,  it  is  never  dull  in  heaven. 
There  is  quite  as  much  variety  in  life  there  as  here.  I  see 
what  is  in  your  minds.  You  fancy  the  people  of  the  ideal  world 
are  all  grown  folk  who  do  nothing  but  talk  profoundly.  That 
they  cannot  suffer  from  hungei*,  and  therefore  have  no  need  to 
work.  That  they  run  no  risk  of  sickness  or  death,  and  there- 
fore need  not  to  be  careful.  That  there  are  no  young  angels 
who  require  to  be  tended  and  trained.  That  they  all  love 
God,  and  therefore  do  not  love  each  other.  Ah,  no  wonder  you 
think  it  dull.  Perhaps  you  think,  too,  that  they  are  made  of  a 
material  too  attenuated  and  transparent  to  be  visible  to  the 
eye,  and  too  rare  of  density  to  be  perceptible  to  the  touch  ? 
Perhaps  you  even  think  they  are  all  alike  in  the  uniformity  or 
rather  lack  of  sex  ?  " 

Criss  did  not  know  that  Bertie  had  already  reported  many  of 
his  aerial  experiences.  The  girls  manifested  great  curiosity, 
and  said — 

"  Are  there  such  distinctions  in  those  regions  ?  Do  tell  us, 
dear  Criss." 

But  they  showed  no  levity ;  that,  they  knew,  would  at  once 
close  his  heart  and  his  lips. 

They  could  not,  moreover,  help  feeling  a  certain  degree  of 
awe  on  recosrnizingr  the   manifest  likeness  of  character  subsist- 


102  BY  AND  BY. 

ing  between  him  and  those  mystics  of  antiquity  who  founded 
the  various  religions  of  the  world.  Occasionally,  in  his  absence, 
they  would  discuss  the  question  how  far  his  peculiarity  was  due 
to  an  extraordinary  vividness  in  the  faculty  of  personification, 
whereby  the  ideas  perceived  by  his  mind  were  at  once  trans- 
muted into  bodily  form  by  his  eyes ;  and  how  far  they  had  a 
basis  in  fact. 

Criss's  own  theory  involved  an  identification  of  material  and 
spiritual  substances. 

"  Thought,"  he  argued,  "  does  not  think.  It  is  the  product 
of  something  that  does  think ; — that  is,  of  a  really  existing 
entity.  This  entity  may  be  the  basis  of  all  things;  and  it  is  a 
mere  assumption  to  regard  it  as  incapable  of  manifesting  indi- 
viduality and  intelligence  under  forms  other  than  our  own,  and 
without  transmutation  mto  the  grosser  plasms." 

The  general  conclusion  of  the  Avenils  was  that  he  was 
subject  to  a  tendency  to  dream  without  entering  the  condition 
of  sleep.  The  strong  asseverations  of  impossible  events  with 
which  history  abounds,  they  held  to  be  due,  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily to  conscious  falsehood,  but  rather  to  that  unconscious 
and  abnormal  activity  of  the  imagination  which  has  its  results 
in  the  waking-dream.  Such  dream  may  endure  but  for  an 
instant,  and  come  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  distractions,  and 
be  manifestly  based  on  facts  of  which  we  were  previously 
aware  ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  a  dream.  The  confusion  of  the 
objective  with  the  subjective,  caused  by  this  characteristic, 
was,  they  believed,  so  liable  to  be  mischievous  in  its  effects, 
that  they  ardently  hoped  that  Criss  would,  as  he  became  older, 
grow  out  of  it. 

It  was  in  reply  to  their  eager  questioning  respecting  the  sex 
of  his  aerial  friends,  that  he  said — speaking  in  his  most  serious 
tone, — 

"  The  love  of  God  in  the  heart  of  the  creature  must  expend 
itself  on  the  creature,  otherwise  it  w^ould  madden  or  destroy. 
"Were  there  no  sex,  there  would  be  nought  but  self-love. 
Therefore  is  Duality  the  universal  law  of  life.  There  are,  how- 
ever, mysteries  which  the  Angels   themselves  cannot  fathom. 


BY  AND  BY.  103 

Outwardly,  their  form  of  government  is  republican,  having  no 
visible  head.  Inwardly,  it  is  monarchical  and  theocratic,  for 
the  idea  of  God  rules  in  the  breast  of  each.  Every  individual 
angel  has  a  voice  in  the  common  affairs.  It  would  be  impossi- 
ble to  exclude  the  female  angels  from  taking  an  equal  share 
with  the  male,  in  political  as  well  as  in  social  matters,  for  all 
dress  and  look  alike,  save  only  to  the  eye  of  love. 

''Down  here,  with  us,  should  a  woman  approach  the  polls, 
the  official,  being  a  male,  and  constituting  himself  a  judge  of 
dress  and  fashion,  as  well  as  of  nomenclature,  would  say,  'By 
the  character  of  your  dress,  or  the  termination  of  your  name, 
I  adjudge  you  to  be  a  woman.  You  must  therefore  retire. 
The  privilege  of  voting  is  not  accorded  to  those  who  are  thus 
attired  or  styled.' 

"The  universal  development  of  sex  with  us,  makes  such  out- 
wai'd  distinctions  indispensable.  But,  above,  sex  is  a  matter  of 
private  concern,  unrevealed  to  the  official  eye,  and  manifest 
only  to  the  loved  one.  Indeed,  until  love  comes,  I  understand 
SOX  has  no  existence,  being  produced  onl}^  under  the  influence 
of  a  natural  affinity.  When  two  young  angels  first  conceive 
an  affection  for  each  other,  they  know  not  into  which  sex  either 
of  them  will  develop.  But  these  things  are  mysteries,  not  yet 
fully  revealed  to  me." 

"  My  difficulty,"  remarked  one  of  the  elder  girls,  "  in  com- 
prehending a  perfect  existence,  is  mostly  of  this  kind.  Of 
course  there  must  be  desires  to  be  indulged,  and  gratifications 
to  be  obtained ;  for  without  them  existence  would  be  devoid 
of  an  object  and  aim.  But  if  what  one  wants  comes  without 
effort,  it  possesses  little  value  and  brings  little  happiness.  And 
if  the  requisite  effort  be  great,  it  may  surpass  the  powers  of 
some  to  make  it  successfully,  and  so  lead  to  disappointment  and 
despair.  I  should  like  to  know  how  the  inhabitants  of  the 
ideal  world  contrive  to  balance  between  the  two  conditions." 

"You  are  imagining  a  perfection,"  answered  Criss,  "that  is 
impossible,  save  for  two,  the  All-being,  and  the  Non-existent. 
The  ha2:)piness  of  the  Angels  consists  in  the  perfection  of  their 
sympathies,  which  tell  them   what   is  within   their  power  of 


104  BY  AND  BY. 

attainment,  and  what  is  beyond  it ;  and  of  their  good  sense, 
Avhich  leads  them  to  be  satisfied  with  the  former.  The  loading 
rule  of  their  lives  is  found  in  their  own  Inmost.  The  worship 
of  the  Inmost  is  the  ritual  of  heaven.  It  alone  is  sacred  to 
each,  for  to  each  it  is  the  whisper  of  the  All-being.  God  is  to 
them  neither  Sphinx  nor  Fiend,  but  truly  a  Father  of  Lights. 
There,  no  church  would  be  catholic,  no  conventionalism  moral, 
which  sought  to  override  this  Divine  voice  in  any  individual 
soul." 

"  Why,  that  is  the  essence  of  the  Emancipation,"  said  an- 
other of  the  party ;  "  to  follow  our  individual  temperaments, 
instead  of  laying  down  an  identical  rule  for  all." 

''  But  it  does  not  follow  that  one  temperament  is  not  capable 
of  a  far  higher  degree  of  happiness  than  another,"  said  Criss. 

"  That  may  be,"  was  the  reply ;  "  yet  I  suspect  that  fre- 
quency of  repetition  is,  for  many  of  us  poor  mortals,  a  A^ery  fair 
substitute  for  intensity  of  emotion." 

"  I  ought  to  have  said,"  answered  Criss,  "  that  the  angels 
exempt  love  from  the  category  of  variables.  That  is  always  a 
serious  matter  with  them." 

"  I  don't  care  to  be  an  angel,  then,"  exclaimed  the  charminp; 
and  vivacious  Bessie.  "  And  I  pity  them,  for  they  evidently 
don't  know  the  pleasure  of  flirting." 

While  his  friends  of  the  Emancipation  credited  him  with 
approximating  to  The  Bemnant,  those  of  the  latter  with  whom 
he  held  occasional  intercourse,  thought  him  terribly  far  gone 
in  the  other  direction. 

They  held  the  strong  old-fashioned  doctrines  respecting  the 
heinous  nature  of  "sin;"  and  Criss  maintained  that  they  had 
no  right  to  judge  of  such  matters  except  by  analogy.  "No 
human  jjarent,"  he  argued,  "  ever  considers  his  child  to  have 
erred  past  forgiveness.  You  have  no  right  to  think  that  the 
Universal  Parent  is  harder.  As  for  our  own  repentance  for 
our  faults,  if  He  can  allow  them  to  find  a  place  in  his  domain, 
it  is  possible  that  we  may  find  things  better  worthy  to  absorb 
our  attention." 


BY  AND  BY.  105 

He  even  became  bitter  and  sarcastic  in  his  reprobation  of  the 
slavishness  and  timidity  of  their  orthodoxy. 

"  Love  God ! "  he  exclaimed  to  a  group  with  whom  he  was 
discussing  these  matters.  "  Surely  you  would  not  have  the 
presumption.  Fear  to  do  wrong  !  Of  course  it  is  better  to  do 
nothing  than  to  do  wrong.  Much  better  had  it  been  if  the 
Creator  had  acted  on  your  principles,  and  abstained  from  creat- 
ing.    Had  there  been  no  Universe,  there  had  been  no  sin." 

Some  of  his  hearers  thought  they  detected  a  blasphemy  in 
this  utterance.  It  seemed  to  imply  that  the  Creator  himself 
preferred  to  do  wrong  rather  than  do  nothing. 

"  Well,"  said  Criss,  with  a  smile  that  horribly  perplexed 
them,  "  do  you  hold  that  there  is  no  evil  in  the  Universe  ?  If 
there  be  any,  whence  came  it  ?  And  if  there  be  none,  what 
becomes  of  your  favorite  theory  of  things  ?  Ah,  if  you  would 
only  fear  less  to  see  things  with  your  own  eyes." 

"  We  fear  nothing,  for  our  souls  are  safe  in  his  hands  who 
has  saved  them,"  they  said. 

"  Kone  can  save  the  soul  of  another,"  replied  Criss.  "  Even 
he  in  whom  you  trust,  can  only  shew  us  how  to  save  our  souls 
ourselves.  It  is  not  to  be  done  by  thinking  or  appearing,  but 
by  being  and  doing.  Each  of  us  is  a  force,  to  be  put  into  action 
and  utilized.  It  would  be  a  poor  sort  of  locomotive  that  dis- 
charged all  its  power  into  the  air,  for  fear  that,  if  it  commenced 
to  travel,  it  might  run  off  the  line." 

His  friends  in  the  Triangle  knew  nothing  of  this  side  of  his 
character.  He  was  near  his  majority  when  Avenil,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  a  visit  from  him,  sought  to  sound  him  on  the  subject 
of  his  settlement  in  life. 

"  I  sometimes  fear,"  he  said,  "  that  we  shall  soon  lose  sight 
of  you  altogether.  Your  sympathies  seem  to  be  more  with  the 
old  Orthodoxy  of  the  Reniiiant  than  with  us  votaries  of  science. 
I  shall  not  be  surprised  at  seeing  you  finally  captured  by  those 
daughters  of  Heth." 

"  Do  I  strike  you  in  that  light  ?  "  exclaimed  Criss,  surprised. 
"  I  had  no  idea  of  it.  No,  no,  Mr.,  I  mean  Lord,  Avenil  dear. 
If  I  am  not  in  perfect  accord  with  you,  I  am  far  less  in  accord 


106  ^iY   ^^ND  BY. 

witli  them.  For  me  the  first  essential  is  genuineness.  If  ever 
I  many,  than  which  nothing  at  present  seems  less  likely,  it  is 
not  among  the  fettered  and  conventional  that  I  shall  seek  a 
wife.  Her  nature  must  be  nature,  not  art ;  real,  not  manufac- 
tured. I  do  not  quarrel  with  your  method,  so  far  as  it  goes  ; 
only,  it  seems  to  me  to  stop  short  by  so  much.  In  that  your' 
science  has  for  its  end  and  aim  the  development  and  satisfac- 
tion of  the  affections,  it  possesses  my  entire  sympathy.  Tliey 
of  t\iQ  Remnant  vfovildi  crush  those  affections  as  being  merely 
natural.  You  work  with  nature  ;  they  work  against  it.  But 
I  always  feel  that  there  are  departments  in  nature  of.  which  you 
take  no  account.  Delicate  and  sensitive  as  are  the  instruments 
with  which  you  gauge  the  finer  material  elements  and  their 
phenomena,  they  are  still  utterly  inadequate  to  appreciate  the 
existence  and  phenomena  of  the  mind.  There  is  thus  a  whole 
universe  of  facts  lying  entirely  outside  of  your  range,  and  to 
me  the  most  interesting  of  all  facts.'' 

"Granted  what  you  say,"  returned  Avenil,  "there  will  ever 
be  this  difficulty  to  be  overcome : — the  same  mind  cannot  at 
once  be  in  motion  and  at  rest.  Study  implies  activity,  and  in 
order  to  be  studied  the  object  must  be  at  rest.  A  man  there- 
fore cannot  investigate  his  own  mind ;  and  it  is  impossible  to 
see  into  that  of  another." 

"For  me,"  replied  Criss,  "There  seems  to  be  an  intermedia'e 
condition,  of  which  you  take  no  account ;  and  it  is  that  which 
I  love  to  cultivate.  I  find  I  can  do  so  with  more  success  in  the 
finer  airs  aloft,  than  down  in  these  denser  strata.  It  is  a  con- 
dition in  Avhich  the  mind  becomes  clear  and  luminous  as  crys- 
tal :  absolutely  at  rest,  so  far  as  effort  is  concerned,  but  still 
self-conscious.  It  is  a  condition,  not  of  thought,  but  of  reverie; 
the  condition  in  which  alone  since  the  world  began,  man  has 
found  it  possible  to  hold  converse  with  God.  Your  .scientific 
activities  can  embrace  but  the  limited  ;  and  these,  parts  only  of 
the  organism  of  the  Universe.  Spiritual  reverie  reveals  the 
highest  results  of  the  whole.  The  value  of  such  reverie,  I 
grant  willingl}^,  is  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  moral  and 
scientific  training  the  mind  has  received.     Knowledge  and  feel- 


BY  AND  BY.  107 

ing  taken  separately,  are  worth  notliing.  It  is  through  their 
union  alone  that  we  can  know  God.  It  was  because  the  intui- 
tions of  the  ancients  were  unenlightened  by  science,  or  exact 
knowledge  of  nature,  that  they  produced  those  hideous  ideals  of 
the  deity  which  make  the  ancient  religions  so  repulsive  to  us. 
Now^  my  reveries,"  he  added,  smiling,  "  have  the  benefit  of  all 
the  knowledge  I  owe  to  your  goodness  to  me  ;  but  surely  I 
should  be  making  light  of  that  knowledge  were  I  to  interpret 
io  by  anything  short  of  the  best  of  the  faculties  I  find  in  me, 
I  mean  my  intuitive  perception." 

"  You  will  remember,"  said  Avenil,  "  that  I  have  uttered  no 
word  against  the  possibility  either  of  intuitive  perceptions  or 
of  revelation.  I  say  only  that,  without  the  capability  of  being 
verified  by  repetition  and  experience,  it  is  impossible  to  commu- 
nicate them  to  others.     They  remain  in  the  region  of  dreams." 

"  I  see,"  replied  Criss,  "  and  will  think  over  what  you  say. 
But  I  did  not  come  here  to  take  up  all  your  time  in  talking, 
but  to  congratulate  you  on  your  new  dignity.  I  cannot  tell 
3'ou  how  pleased  I  am,  both  for  your  own  sake  and  the  coun- 
try's." 

Criss  alluded  to  Avenil's  appointment  to  a  seat  in  the  Upper 
Chamber  of  the  Legislature,  which  had  just  been  conferred,  un- 
sought, upon  him.  It  was  a  grateful  proof  of  the  country's  ap- 
preciation of  his  labors  on  behalf  of  science,  especially  in  its 
sanitary  and  agricultural  relations. 

I  may  as  well  inform  my  younger  or  foreign  readers,  that  it 
had  been  one  of  the  achievements  of  the  Emancipation  to 
abolish  the  hereditary  principle  in  respect  of  all  offices,  ex- 
cepting only  the  Crown ;  and  to  substitute  for  it,  in  the  Upper 
House,  a  system  of  election  akin  to  one  which  had  been  sug- 
gested so  long  ago  as  the  Victorian  period.  By  this  method 
any  man  who  had  won  the  confidence  of  the  country  at  large 
might,  without  holding  special  relations  with  any  particular 
district,  and  without  putting  himself  forward  as  a  candidate, 
find  himseK  elevated  to  a  peerage  for  life,  together  with  a 
moderate  allowance  in  money,  and  the  historic  prefix  of  lord 
to  his   own   name,  so  as  not  to   merge  his  identity  in  a  ne^y 


108  BT  AND  BY. 

appellation.  The  number  of  these  lords  was,  after  some  fluctu- 
ation, fixed  at  five  hundred.  The  Prime  Minister  of  the  day 
had  also  the  power  of  nominating  a  ct^rtain  small  per-centage 
of  tlu'  [X'ers. 

The  lower  chamber — (I  mention  this  that  all  ni}-  readers  at 
least  may  know  the  political  constitution  of  this  country) — con- 
sists of  representatives  and  delegates  from  various  localities. 
It  rests  between  a  constituency  and  its  member,  and  depends 
mainly  on  the  calibre  of  the  latter,  whether  he  should  be  a 
representative  exercising  his  own  judgment,  or  a  delegate 
recording  the  opinions  of  a  majority  of  his  constituency. 

The  position  of  the  country  in  respect  of  the  crown,  has  for 
some  time  been  very  peculiar.  Of  all  the  nations  of  Europe, 
those  only  which  retained  their  monarchical  institutions  were 
Russia  and  Great  Britain.  The  rest,  after  changes  and  revolu- 
tions innumerable,  have  settled  down,  apparently  for  ever,  with 
Constitutions  modelled  after  the  American  type.  Even  we  did 
not  retain  our  old  forms  without  a  hard  struggle.  That  we  did 
retain  them  was  owing  partly  to  the  failure  of  objectors  to  find 
a  substitute  free  from  objection  ;  partly  to  the  admirable  manner 
in  which  the  sovereigns  of  the  Victorian  dynasty  fufilled  their 
royal  functions ;  and  partly  also  to  the  complete  emancipation 
of  the  country  from  dogmas  political  as  well  as  religions. 
Experience  having  shown  the  monarchy  to  work  well  with  us, 
it  was  not  to  be  abolished  at  the  dictation  of  republican  dog- 
matists. 

It  was  on  the  death  of  the  famous  queen,  whose  prolonged 
grief  for  the  loss  of  her  almost  ideal  husband  has  made  her  the 
heroine  of  many  a  tale  and  poem  as  a  model  of  widowed  con- 
stancy, that  the  splendor  and  cost  of  royalty  in  this  country 
was  reduced  within  reasonable  limits.  Her  successor,  a  sensible, 
frank,  and  genial  man,  readily  fell  in  with  the  new  tariff,  and  he 
and  his  descendants  enacted  the  part,  rather  of  hereditary  pre- 
sident than  of  sovereign,  until,  a  few  generations  ago,  when  the 
family  unfortunately  became  extinct.  Unfortunately,  I  say, 
not  because  we  have  consciously  suffered  any  appreciable 
damage  as  a  people  in  consequence,  but  because  it  is  impossi- 


BY   AND  BY.  109 

ble  to  help  regretting  the  fall  of  a  nohle  old  tree  that  has  for 
ages  made  a  feature  in  the  landscape,  and  braved  the  storms 
which  have  raged  round  it  and  us ;  because,  also,  we  know  not 
v.hat  may  be  in  store  for  us  in  the  future. 

But  when,  through  failure  of  heirs,  the  dynasty  came  to  an 
end,  something  had  to  be  done.  What  should  it  be  ?  The 
country  would  not  hear  of  sending  abroad  for  a  new  ro3'al 
family,  and  indeed  there  was  no  abroad  to  send  to  for  one, 
unless  we  were  prepared  to  accept  a  scion  of  Russia,  Turkey, 
or  Central  Africa.  This  last  was  not  without  its  advocates, 
on  the  ground  that  there  would  be  a  humorous  retribution  in 
placing  on  the  throne  of  Britain  a  descendant  of  the  famous 
Abyssinian  monarch  who  had  provoked  our  ancestors  to  destroy 
him. 

All  the  plans  in  operation  in  the  rest  of  the  world  were  dis- 
cussed and  re-discussed,  and  a  good  deal  of  ill-feeling  was 
making  itself  apparent,  when  a  proposition  was  made  to  post- 
pone the  discussion  of  the  question  for  six  months,  and  in  the 
meanwhile  to  consider  the  Prime  Minister  for  the  time  being  as 
invested  with  the  presidential  functions  of  the  sovereign. 

The  interval  allowed  men's  minds  to  become  quiet,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  six  months,  no  inconvenience  having  occurred, 
and  no  acceptible  suggestion  having  been  made,  the  Prime 
Minister  was  confirmed  in  his  new  functions  for  another  six 
months.  It  has  thus  come  about  that  our  country  has  for 
several  generations  been  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  government  far 
more  republican  than  any  deliberately-formed  constitution  in 
the  world ;  for  in  all  other  republics  there  is  a  president  who  is 
virtually  irrenrovable  during  a  fixed  term  of  office,  whereas  our 
president  holds  office  only  so  long  as  he  retains  the  confidence 
of  the  Legislative  Chambers. 

It  is  true  that  thex'e  was  for  some  time  a  void  in  the  mind  of 
the  nation  which  nothing  seemed  able  to  fill.  The  spectre  of 
the  vacant  throne  and  crown,  with  piteous  forlornness  con- 
tinually appealed  to  the  popular  imagination,  so  powerful  do 
hereditary  impressions  sometimes  become.  And  it  was  even, 
feared  that  in  some  period  of  popular  excitement  a  party  might 


110  BY  AND  BY. 

be  found  to  make  political  capital  out  of  the  supposed  grievance. 
So,  on  a  haj^py  thought,  it  was  determined  to  ])lace  the  throne 
in  one  of  the  Chambers  immediately  behind  the  place  occupied 
by  the  Minister-president,  with  the  crown  lying  on  the  seat, 
and  the  national  flag  suspended  above  it.  This  combination  of 
the  symbols  of  the  monachy  and  the  nation,  had  the  hai)piest 
effect  in  reconciling  both  royalists  and  republicans;  and  the 
new  system  of  government  has  been  found  to  Avork  so  well 
that  we  have  allowed  it  to  continue  in  operation  ever  since. 
Being  avow^edly  only  provisional,  it  involves  no  principle,  and 
therefore  no  one  considers  it  a  point  of  honor  to  try  to  upset 
it  on  principle. 


BOOK    11. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Away  from  the  crowded  earth,  where  men  teem  in  such 
countless  millions  that  solitude  and  contemplation  are  no 
longer  possible  upon  its  surface.  Away  from  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  a  complex  civilization,  with  its  manifold  cares  and 
incessant  activities,  its  constant  changes  and  perpetual  same- 
ness. Away  from  engrossments  that  occupy  the  body  and  clog 
the  soul,  and  dull  the  spirit's  perceptions,  and  hide  from  man 
that  eternal  Ideal  from  wliich  he  sprang,  and  to  which  he  must 
return.  Away  into  the  boundless  plains  of  mid-air,  whither 
none  from  below  can  follow,  where  they  only  can  penetrate  in 
whom  the  soul  is  dominant,  even  they  who  are  from  above, 
denizens  of  the  azure,  children  of  the  light,  bright  actualities 
of  thoughts  which  the  best  only  among  mortals  can  imagine, 
which  the  most  gifted  cannot  translate  into  words. 

It  is  verse,  not  prose,  that  should  tell  of  such  flight  into  the 
empyrean; — tell  how,  when  thus 

Leaving  far  the  world  behind, 
Like  him  of  old,  who  on  the  wind 
Was  rapt  from  earth,  and,  as  he  flew, 
Back  his  curab'ring  mantle  threw ; 
Ancient  prejudices  all 
To  their  native  level  fall ; 
For  selfish  thoughts  and  coward  fears 
Cannot  break  the  bonds  of  years, 
Cannot  flee  time's  narrow  reign, 
And  revel  ou  the  eternal  plain — 


112  BY  AND  BY. 

Ah,  no;  only  he  who  sang,  as  no  other  of  earth's  poets 
before  him,  or  since,  have  sung,  could  paint  the  rapture  of  the 
flight  as  young  Carol  soared  aloft  upon  the  billows  of  the  air, 
winging  the  blue  deep  ten  thousand  fathoms  up,  and  higher 
yet,  his  whole  being  a  song  and  a  delight.  Leaving,  perchance, 
the  earth  wrapped  in  the  pale,  purple  evening ;  regaining,  as 
he  sped,  the  golden  light  of  the  sunken  sun ;  bathing  awhile  in 
the  silver  shower  of  the  moonbeams,  and  visited  all  night  by 
troops  of  stars,  as  they  emerged  from  their  hiding-places  after 
the  departure  of  their  fair  queen. 

Then  the  dreams  that  would  come,  as  he  lay  floating  aloft, 
poised  like  an  eagle  asleep  upon  its  outspread  pinions.  Dreams ! 
Were  they  dreams  ?  And  was  it  sleeping  or  waking  that  they 
came  to  him  ?  I  reckon  Criss  knew  not :  knew  not  whether  in 
the  body  or  out  of  the  body :  whether  in  trance  or  in  reality, 
when  thus  mounting  as  into  the  seventh  heaven,  he  regained 
the  society  of  angels,  and  was  admitted  into  the  recesses  of  the 
invisible  world. 

No  wonder  that  even  when,  as  one  has  sung  of  the  bird  of 
passage,  all  day  long  his  wings  had  funned  at  that  far  heiglit, 
the  cool,  thin  atmosphere,  and  the  dark  night  drew  near,  he 
stooped  not,  weary,  to  the  land ;  for  then  it  was  that  to  him, 
the  rapt  and  kingl}^  youth,  who  loved  to  hold  such  commune, 
his  highborn  kinsfolk  came, — came  as  fair  embodied  visions 
and  ideas,  descending  from  the  jet  far  rarer  atmosphere  of  the 
regions  where  they  dwelt,  drawn  by  the  force  of  the  sympa- 
thies which  they  ever  have  with  the  worshipper  of  the  Ideal. 
Little  do  people  know  what  they  lose  when  they  clog  their 
minds  with  preconceptions  of  the  unverifiable,  and  in  the  posi- 
tiveness  of  profound  ignorance,  close  them  against  the  teaching 
of  the  spirits. 

So  apt  in  discerning  the  spirits  did  Criss  become,  that  he 
could  recognize  distinctions  of  gifts  and  characters,  as  well  as  of 
outward  form.  He  made  special  friendships,  too.  There  Avas 
one  angel,  tall  of  stature,  and  thoughtful  and  steadfast  of  mien, 
who  conceived  a  great  affection  for  him,  and  gave  him  many 


BY  AND  BY.  113 

details  respecting  their  mode  of  life.  And  more  tlian  once 
Criss  was  struclv  l)y  finding  how  near  is  the  parallel  existing 
between  things  celestial  and  things  terrestrial  ;  and  this  in  res- 
pect even  of  moral  characteristics.  He  was  eqiially  surprised 
to  find  that  the  inequality  of  their  natures  and  developments  is 
regarded  by  them  with  favor,  inasmuch  as  it  produces  a  pleas- 
ing variety,  and  contributes  to  the  general  effect  of  the  spirit- 
ual landscape.  Even  a  "bad  "  angel,  as  one  of  a  corresponding 
class  would  be  called  on  earth,  is  but  as  an  accidental  discord  in 
a  piece  of  music,  and  serves  to  enrich  the  general  harmony. 

One  of  their  customs  served  to  remind  Criss  of  the  exquisite 
art  of  horticulture.  As  our  gardeners  are  in  the  habit  of 
making  even  insignificant  flowers  effective  in  producing  beauty/ 
by  massing  a  number  of  them  together  (no  flower  is  "  ngly "), 
so  angels,  who,  individually,  lack  the  qualifications  necessary  to 
secure  distinction,  gather  together,  like  with  like,  into  separate 
communities;  and  this,  not  through  any  law  imposed  upon  them 
from  without,  but  through  the  spontaneous  operation  of  their 
own  sympathies.  He  observed,  also,  that  however  large  or 
prominent  any  of  these  sections  may  be,  however  convinced  of 
their  own  surpassing  perfections,  or  even  however  low  in  the 
scale  of  angelic  excellence,  they  never  make  it  a  matter  of  re- 
proach to  any  that  they  do  not  belong  to  them. 

"  It  takes  many  different  kinds  of  angels  to  make  up  heaven," 
Criss's  tall  friend  remarked  to  him.  ''Even  the  lowest  and 
most  rudimentary  angels  have  uses  which  save  them  from  being 
regarded  with  contempt  by  the  more  highly  endowed.  I  per- 
ceive that  you  experience  a  sensation  of  surprise  at  there  being 
such  a  class  among  us.  But  all  things  finite  are  comparative. 
We  regard  as  such  those  who  form,  or  used  to  form,  the  bulk  of 
all  communities  of  beings  endowed  with  a  capacity  for  intelli- 
gence :  those  in  whom  the  perceptive  faculties  are  not  active  in 
proportion  to  their  reflective.  Their  powers  of  retention  exceed 
their  powers  of  acquisition,  so  that  habit  has  for  them  a  stronger 
attraction  than  progress.  They  love  a  mechanical  sort  of  ex- 
istence, and  being  devoid  of  the  sanguine  and  hopeful  in  their 
temperaments,  and  incapable  of  imagining  in  the  future  an 
8 


114  '  BY  AND  BY. 

ideal  of  wliicli  tlie  past  shows  tlicm  no  counterpart,  their  faculty 
of  memory  altogether  supersedes  their  faculty  of  aspiration. 
With  you,  down  j'onder,  tliis  class  would  claim  for  itself  the 
title  of  orthodox,  on  the  strength  of  its  conformity  to  a  standard 
derived  from  an  actual  past,  however  defective  it  be  in  regard 
to  present  needs.  But  here  we  recognize  as  alone  entitled  to 
rank  as  orthodox,  those  who  keep  their  feelings  and  perceptions 
oj)en  to  the  reception  of  any  fresh  influences  that  may  stream 
in  from  any  part  of  the  universe.  Some  of  our  oldest  angels 
have  told  me  that  we  used  once  to  regard  tradition  as  the  test 
of  truth,  and  that  there  are  places  in  heaven  where  the  practice 
still  widely  prevails ;  but  they  are  far  distant,  in  regions  lying 
•above  the  darker  parts  of  the  earth.  With  us  who  inhabit  one 
of  the  most  highly  developed  of  the  angelic  splieres,  to  think 
freely,  that  is,  what  you  used  to  call  heresy,  is  alone  counted  as 
orthodox  ;  not  to  think  at  all,  or  to  think  subserviently  to  aught 
but  the  actual,  is  heresy. 

"The  traditionalists,  however,  are  valued  among  us  for  what 
they  are,  not  for  what  they  are  not.  Most  of  our  historians, 
who  serve  to  keep  alive  the  memory  of  antiquity,  and  so  enable 
us  to  mark  the  steps  of  our  progress,  come  from  among  them. 
We  find  that  the  greater  the  period  of  time  over  which  our 
generalizations  extend,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  facts  they 
comprise,  the  more  likely  we  are  to  attain  a  true  judgment  re- 
specting our  relations  Avith  the  infinite.  We  do  not  find, 
however,  that  the  recorders  of  facts  are  generally  the  most  com- 
petent to  generalize  from  them, 

"I  see  you  are  cogitating  over  my  phrase  'oldest  angels.' 
You  think  that  if  there  be  ages  in  heaven,  there  must  be  birth, 
and  perhaps  death.  There  are  both  of  these.  We  call  the 
latter  disappearance.  All  I  can  tell  you  about  it  is  this :  we 
have  our  time.  All  finite  beings  have  their  time.  It  is  the 
law  of  the  Supreme.  He  said  in  his  counsels,  'I  give  them  up 
all,  reserving  to  myself  one  prerogative — Death.  They  are 
free  to  develop  their  natures  to  the  full  extent  of  their  condi- 
tions :  but  all  must  submit  to  a  period.  There  they  must  trust 
we.' " 


BY  AND  BY,  115 

"And  we  do  trust  Him.  When  too  old  to  enjoy,  or  enalde 
others  to  enjoy ;  perchance  when  needed  elsewhere,  we  disap- 
pear. This  keeps  us  from  encumhering  our  sphere,  and  gives 
the  younger  angels  a  chance. 

"What  becomes  of  us  on  disappearing?  Those  who  remain 
behind  never  know.  Some  have  a  vague  notion  that  the 
Supreme  puts  us  into  the  crucible  of  his  love,  and  remoulds  us 
for  a  fresh  stage  of  existence.  But  our  ignorance  brings  us  no 
fear,  our  love  and  trust  being  perfect.  We  have  no  certainty 
of  a  future.  Like  you,  we  are  phenomena,  whether  recurrent 
or  not,  we  know  not.  Do  children,  with  you,  when  they  fall 
asleep  in  their  parent's  arms,  wonder  whether,  or  where,  they 
will  wake  ? 

"So  you  thought  we  had  only  to  will  in  order  to  have.  In- 
dolent wishing  procures  nothing,  even  in  the  highest  of  the 
spiritual  spheres.  We  are  bound  to  prove  the  reality  of  our 
desires  by  our  efforts  to  realize  them. 

"The  sense  in  which  I  use  the  term  spirit?  Wien  signify- 
ing an  entity,  it  differs  from  matter  only  in  degree.  In  kind 
it  is  the  same,  or  rather,  they  are  different  stages  of  the  same 
material. 

"  You  wish  to  know  whether  we  possess  at;ght  that  is  capable 
of  surviving  the  grosser  organism,  and  becoming  re-constituted 
as  an  individual. 

"  This  is  what  I  said  we  do  not  know.  It  is  where  we  can 
only  trust.  Both  in  kindness  and  wisdom  it  is  «o  ordained. 
In  kindness,  because  hope  is  one  of  the  most  precious  of  j^os- 
sessions,  and  where  all  is  certainty  there  is  no  room. for  hope. 
In  wisdom,  because  the  imaginative  faculty  which  appertains  to 
all  intelligent  beings,  would,  by  the  certainty  of  a  future  state, 
lie  called  into  such  intense  activity  respecting  its  nature,  as  to 
make  the  present  comparatively  valueless.  The  Supreme  lives 
in  the  Now,  as  well  as  the  Then.  So  that  to  contemn  and 
neglect  the  present  life,  is  to  defraud  Him  and  ourselves  also. 

"  Glance  to  the  past  history  of  your  own  world.  ^ATience 
have  sprung  the  vast  majority  of  the  evils  your  own  race  has 
experienced  ?     Is  it  not  through  regarding  as  absolutely  certain 


IIG  BY  AND  BY. 

that  which  ought  to  be  an  aspiration  and  a  liope,  that  man  has 
sacrificed  the  happiness  provided  for  him  in  tlie  present  life,  to 
his  fears  respecting  the  future  ? 

"Well,  with  us  in  heaven,  as  well  as  with  you  on  earth,  the 
certainty  that  a  future  awaits  us,  would  operate  upon  tlu^  jjres- 
ent  more  perniciously  than  an  equally  strong  conviction  the 
other  way.  The  conviction  that  we  exist  only  in  the  2)resent 
would,  sooner  or  later,  lead  to  our  making  the  very  best  of  that 
present.  We  should  thus,  at  least,  give  the  Supreme  credit  for 
meaning  well  by  us  so  long  as  we  existed.  But  we  should  not 
have  hope,  as  under  the  present  arrangement — the  may-be. 

"Besides,  were  our  actions  weighted  with  motives  derived 
from  the  certainty  of  an  hereafter,  real  morality  would  be  all 
but  impossible.  We  must  love  and  follow  good  for  its  own 
sake,  otherwise  we  are  not  fitted  to  endure.  Change  of  jjlace 
works  no  radical  change  of  mind.  If  we  have  no  love  of  good 
here,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  we  should  have  it  there. 
And  if  we  have  it  not,  how  can  we  desire  to  perpetuate  exist- 
ences which  are  devoid  of  such  love? 

"  Our  abode  ?  That  is  principally  on  the  confines  of  the 
atmosphere  which  encircles  the  earth.  It  sustains  us  as  the 
solider  surface  of  the  earth  sustains  you,  and  as  the  sea  sus- 
tains your  ships.  Resting  on  that,  we  can  raise  our  heads 
aloft,  and  inhale  the  pure  ether  of  space.  Our  capacity  for 
physical  enjoyment  is  intense.  On  the  ever  shifting  billows  of 
the  outer  atmosphere,  we  shoot  upwards  or  plunge  downwards. 
In  it  or  on  it  we  swim,  and  glide,  and  fly,  and  dive.  It  is  by  a 
process  of  diving  that  I  am  able  to  penetrate  hither  to  you. 
Would  that  I  could  take  you  into  the  far  recesses  of  our  world. 
But  your  time  will  come.  Thank  God,  your  time  will  come. 
At  least,  it  is  permitted  to  hope  so. 

"  Oh  no,  we  never  have  accidents  to  hurt  us,  at  least, 
seriously.  We  are  so  carefully  trained  from  infancy  to  obey 
the  laws  of  our  being,  that  even  when  we  go  on  excursions  into 
wild  and  distant  regions,  we  know,  as  by  a  second  nature,  what 
to  do  or  to  avoid. 

"  We  have  no  other  law  than  that  with  which  we  are  born, 


BT  AND  BY.  117 

tlio  law  of  sympathy.  The  springs  of  all  government  are 
within  us.  They  may  require  developing,  but  never  counter- 
acting." 

"  Do  we  never  actually  do  wrong  ?  Well,  I  can  hardly  ex- 
plain. The  fact  is,  we  delight  in  story-books,  and  we  put  all 
our  wickedness  into  them.  It  is  a  great  safeguard  to  us,  and 
prevents  them  from  being  dull." 

The  latter  remarks  were  made  during  Criss's  last  ascent  to 
the  Angelic  spheres  before  quitting  his  minority.  The  rest  of 
the  conversation  had  been  held  at  different  times. 

After  thus  referring  to  the  power  of  their  sympathetic  facul- 
ties, the  angel  paused,  and  a  roseate  hue  overspread  his  whole 
form,  and  he  seemed  to  Criss  as  if  about  to  withdraw  from  him, 
but  in  obedience  to  what  emotion,  Criss  could  not  divine.  Soon 
he  resumed, — 

"  I  ought  to  have  considered  that  my  utterances  respecting 
our  nature  would  excite  in  you  an  earnest  wish  to  know  more. 
My  perceptions  now  show  me  on  what  your  thoughts  are  dwell- 
ing. Your  thoughts  are  pure,  or  I  should  not  be  here.  It  is 
not  forbidden  to  me  to  gratify  the  desire  of  the  pure. 

"  Learn,  then,  that  next  to  the  Supreme,  and  our  own  Inmost, 
whereby  we  come  into  communion  with  Him,  the  most  sacred 
of  all  things  to  us  is  the  mystery  of  the  Sex.  Its  origin  is  a 
mystery  hidden  in  the  breast  of  the  All-wise.  Its  method  is 
likewise  a  mystery.  Enough  has  been  revealed  to  us  to  show 
that  finite  existences  are  possible  only  through  Duality.  It  is 
the  eternal  and  necessary  antidote  to  selfishness.  For  sex 
means  sympathy,  sympathy  with  likeness  in  unlikeness.  Itself 
the  product  of  eternal  love,  it  is  in  its  turn  the  creator  and  sus- 
tainer  of  love.  You,  in  your  manifold  contradictions  upon 
earth,  once  adored  the  attributes  of  sex.  Then  for  ages  jon 
contemned  them,  affecting  a  spirituality  which  regarded  it  as 
an  unhappy  accident.  Then  you  blasphemed  them  by  suffering 
a  state  of  societ}^  in  which  the  natural  sympathies  were  forced 
to  succumb  to  conventional  exigencies.  At  last  you  have 
attained  a  condition  with  which  we  can  sympathize,  for  you 


118  BY  AND  Br. 

have  restored   the   affections  to   their  due  pre-eminence  as  the 
sole  basis  of  morals. 

'•  Some  day  you  will  learn  to  love.  With  most  men  love  is 
the  product  of  sex.  I  believe  you  more  nearly  resemble  us, 
with  whom  sex  is  the  product  of  love.  It  may  be  a  hard  say- 
ing for  3'ou  to  comprehend,  but  we  know  not,  until  love  has 
developed  it  within  us,  to  what  sex  we  shall  belong  when  we 
love.  Unconsciously  to  ourselves,  our  inner  nature  determines 
this  according  to  some  law  which  eludes  our  power  of  analysis. 
For  no  finite  being  can  comprehend  its  own  nature." 

Criss  noted  here  that  there  was  something  in  the  tone  and 
aspect  of  the  angel  which  called  forth  his  own  most  ardent 
sympathy,  as  well  as  curiosity  respecting  his  visitant's  own 
precise  character  and  condition.  It  ha,d  never  before  occurred 
to  him  to  question  the  sex  of  his  friend.  Now,  it  struck  him, 
there  was  something  that  strove  for  expression ;  and  Criss  felt 
his  heart  going  out  towards  him  in  the  fulness  of  intense  sym- 
pathy. But  he  did  not  speak  what  he  felt.  The  angel  was 
accustomed  to  read  his  thoughts,  so  that  utterance  was  super- 
fluous. 

During  most  of  their  previous  interviews,  his  friend  had  been 
accompanied  by  another,  a  slim  stripling  of  middle  height — a 
boy-angel,  as  it  seemed  to  Criss — whose  slight  and  active  form 
was  matched  with  a  playfulness  of  disposition  which  was  wont 
to  exhibit  itself  in  smart  repartees  and  practical  jokes  upon 
Criss  and  his  Ariel ;  and  yet  whose  eyes  and  voice  indicated  a 
cari)acity  for  a  feeling  deeper  than  "seemed  compatible  with  his 
boyishness  in  other  respects. 

It  delighted  Criss  to  witness  the  strong  mutual  affection  sub- 
sisting between  the  two  friends,  and  to  watch  the  gradual  and 
evident  development  of  the  younger  from  mischievous  sprite  to 
laughing  fairy;  and  he  wondered  whether  he  ever  would  attain 
a  character  grave  and  sweet  and  earnest  as  that  of  his  tall 
companion.  Now  and  again  would  tlie  look  of  tender  devotion 
which  shone  through  the  lad's  steel-blue  eyes,  and  diffused 
itself  over  his  merry  countenance,  suddenly  give  place  to  an 


BY  AND  BY.  119 

outbreak  of  the  wildest  spirits,  when  his  look  would  become 
wholly  defiant,  and  his  voice  break  into  snatches  of  joyous 
sonj:^,  and  his  whole  bearing  become  that  of  a  spoilt  and  way- 
ward child. 

Sometimes  he  would  perch  himself  on  the  top  of  Criss's  car, 
and  pretending  to  be  jealous  of  him,  declare  that  he  Avould 
push  him  back  to  the  earth.  At  others  he  would  get  beneath 
it,  and  seek  to  give  it  an  impulse  upwards,  declaring  that  Criss 
must  come  and  stay  altogether  with  them  in  heaven.  Of  course, 
he  could  only  make  as  though  he  would  move  the  car,  for  it  is 
quite  out  of  the  power  of  beings  so  delicately  organized  and 
etherially  constituted,  to  exercise  a  direct  and  perceptible  influ- 
ence upon  the  gross  elements  of  earth.  At  times  he  appeared 
to  be  really  jealous  of  Criss,  once  even  leaving  them,  and 
returning  home  alone,  pouting  like  a  sulky  girl. 

Criss  had  noticed  that  of  late  his  tall  friend  had  become 
graver,  and  somewhat  distrait,  as  if  pre-occupied  and  anxious. 
And  on  this  occasion  there  was,  as  I  have  stated,  something  in 
his  demeanor  that  strangely  excited  Criss's  sympathy.  The 
angel  detected  his  feeling,  and  understood  it  better  than  Criss 
himself. 

"  Your  sympathy,"  he  at  length  said,  "  has  won  from  me  some- 
thing that  I  have  been  longing  to  utter,  but  shrank  from  confess- 
ing, even  to  my  own  kind.  With  you,  attractions  are  of  oppo- 
sites.  Yours  are  marriages  of  completion.  With  us,  like  attracts 
like.  Ours  are  marriages  of  intensitieation.  T  doubt  whether 
that  which  I  shall  next  tell  you,  will  be  equally  comprehensi- 
ble to  you.  I  am  in  the  stage  in  which  love  is  developing  my 
sex.  I  love  and  am  loved,  but  neither  of  tis  have  yet  attained 
assurance  which  of  ns  will  be  endowed  with  masculine,  which 
with  feminine,  functions.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  some  way 
this  conversation  has  hastened  the  crisis.  I  have  grown  bolder 
since  I  gave  you  my  confidence ;  and  now  I  am  almost  certain 
tliat— that— " 

And  here  his  form  and  eyes  dilated,  and  ho  gazed  intently 
into  space.  Then  Criss  thought  he  heard  a  rustling,  but  he 
saw  nothing.    Presently  his  angel-friend  opened  wide  his  arms, 


120  BY  AND  BT. 

and  with  a  bound  there  entered  into  them  another  angel  of 
smaller  dimensions,  fuller  and  more  delicate  outlines,  with  long 
flowing  hair  that  seemed  to  him  like  the  mingling  of  sunbeam 
and  gold-dust.  The  face  was  hidden  in  the  breast  of  the  other, 
as  each  clasped  each,  and  only  a  tiny  luminous  foot  appeared 
beneath  the  alabastrous  skirt ;  but  that  foot  convinced  Criss 
that  his  friend  need  no  longer  doubt  which  province  of  being 
he  was  to  occuj^y  in  the  new  dispensation  upon  which  he  had 
entered. 

And  as  Criss  gazed  at  them  still  clasping  each  other  in  bliss- 
ful trance,  the  air  around  became  instinct  with  life,  and  strains 
of  music  reached  his  ears,  and  those  of  the  new-comer  also ;  for 
She  raised  her  head  from  the  breast  where  it  had  been  hidden  ; 
a  face,  one  glimpse  of  which  told  even  Criss's  duller — because 
still  human — faculties  that  every  thrill  and  pulse  of  her  being 
appertained  to  the  feminine.  She  raised  her  face  and  uttered 
a  little  cry, — half  of  timidity,  half  of  amusement : 

"  We  are  caught !  we  are  caught !  Oh,  where  shall  we  hide 
from  them  ?  " 

For  even  among  angels  the  first  impulse  of  love  for  the  one, 
is  to  conceal  itself  from  the  many. 

But  the  joy  of  the  angels  over  a  new-found  affinity  extends 
far  and  wide,  and  is  too  vivid  to  be  repressed ;  and  so  they  had 
sought  out  these,  diving  after  them  to  the  lower  airs  where 
they  held  converse  with  Criss. 

And  then,  surrounded  by  congratulating  friends,  and  strains 
of  wedding-music,  the  celestial  marriage  party, — the  bride  still 
clasped  in  her  bridegroom's  ayms, — soared  aloft  to  their  ow^n 
aV)iding-place,  and  disappeared  from  Criss's  sight. 

But  the  unutterable  fairness  of  the  face  of  which  he  had 
caught  a  glimpse,  remained  indelibly  impressed  upon  his 
memory.  It  was  the  face  of  the  boy-angel,  as  Criss  had  once 
deemed  him ;  now  by  the  force  of  love  developed  into  the  wo- 
man, and  lit  up  with  all  the  devotion  and  beauty  which  consti- 
tutes the  special  appanage  of  her  sex,  no  matter  in  what  sphere 
of  existence. 


BY  AND  BY.  121 


CHAPTER  II. 


Criss  determined  to  spend  the  last  days  of  his  minority  with 
his  foster-father.  It  happened  that  Bertie  was  much  occupied 
in  carrying  out  a  scheme  of  immigration  for  the  government  of 
Patagonia ;  and,  induced  by  tempting  offers,  large  numbers  of 
settlers  were  leaving  Central  Africa  for  the  bracing  climate  and 
fertile  slopes  of  the  Southern  Cordilleras. 

The  ill-will  beginning  to  be  manifested  towards  the  whites 
on  the  African  plateau,  especially  in  the  districts  immediately 
around  the  capital,  and  the  Bornouse  and  Sakatos  districts  of 
Central  Soudan,  contributed  also  to  the  movement.  Many  of 
the  richer  class  of  emigrants  adopted  the  easy  and  rapid  jour- 
ney aloft,  and  thereby  escaped  the  discomforts  and  risks  of  the 
unwholsome  low  coast  country  ;  but  the  majority,  together  with 
all  heavy  goods,  were  carried  by  sea,  embarking  near  the  mouth 
of  the  river  Kiger. 

There  was  in  reality  no  hardship  about  the  sea-journe}^,  ex- 
cept to  people  accustomed  to  the  exquisite  ease  of  air  travel. 
Our  ancestors  even  of  a  few  generations  back,  would  have  been 
filled  with  envy  could  they  have  foreseen  the  enormous  im- 
provements in  the  construction  of  ships,  which  a  cheap  motive 
power  has  enabled  us  to  make.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize 
the  fact  that  people  used  to  traverse  the  ocean  by  the  aid  of  the 
wind  alone,  or  at  best  impelled  by  steam,  produced  by  the  com- 
bustion of  coal  ;  the  stock  of  this  article  requisite  for  a  long 
voyage  occupying  two-thirds  of  a  vessel's  whole  carrying  ca- 
pacity; and  the  vessel  itself  riding  upon  a  single  keel,  at  the 
mercy  of  every  change  in  the  level  of  the  water,  and  the  decks 
lying  so  low  that  the  waves  frequently  washed  over  them  ! 
What  would  they  have  said  could  they  have  beheld  the  huge 
ferries,  rather  than  ships,  in  which,  raised  high  upon  sharp,  par- 
allel keels,  and  propelled  by  rows  of  wheels  and  screws,  we 
swiftly  pass  and  re-pass  the  ocean  in  crowds,  scarce  knowing 
by  any  movement  whether  it  is  storm  or  calm ! 


122  BY  AND  BY. 

The  sea  now  has  fe\v  terrors  for  voyagers.  The  clanger  of 
fire,  indeed,  cannot  be  altogether  abolislied,  though  it  is  reduced 
to  a  minimum.  Neither  are  collisions,  either  with  each  other 
or  with  icebergs,  altogether  unknown ;  and  when  these  do  hap- 
pen, the  tremendous  jiace  at  which  our  vessels  move  is  apt  to 
produce  catastrophies  which  are  terrible  indeed. 

In  the  event  to  which  the  course  of  my  narrative  now  brings 
me,  both  these  dangers  befel  a  vessel  bound  from  the  west  coast 
of  Africa  to  Patagonia,  having  on  board  a  large  party  of  emi- 
grants. The  clash  occurred  in  the  mid  South  Atlantic,  and 
while  the  two  floating  cities  were  inextricably  crushed  and  en- 
tangled together,  and  their  machinery  in  a  state  of  utter  disor- 
ganization, a  fire  broke  out,  and  threatened  everything  with 
utter  destruction. 

The  first  act  of  the  authorities  on  board  in  such  an  emer- 
gency is  always  to  dispatch  a  boat  to  pick  up  a  wire  of  the  float- 
ing telegraph,  and  summon  aid  from  the  nearest "  port.  This 
was  accordingly  done,  and  then  as  many  of  the  passengers  as 
possible  were  lowered  into  the  life-boats,  to  await,  at  a  safe  dis- 
tance from  the  Inirning  wreck,  the  arrival  of  aid.  To  the  dis- 
may of  all,  it  was  found  that  the  boats  could  not  accommodate 
the  entire  party,  so  that  several  still  remained  upon  the  burn- 
ing vessels. 

Among  these  were  an  elderly  man  and  his  daughter,  who  had 
emigrated  from  the  Scotch  Highlands  to  the  mountain  settle- 
ment on  the  slopes  of  Atlantika,  in  Soudan,  and  were  now, 
after  some  years'  residence  there,  starting  on  a  new  venture 
in  a  climate  and  country  more  nearly  resembling  their  own. 

The  daughter,  a  girl  of  sixteen,  had  by  her  marvellous  beauty 
and  fascinating  vivacit}^,  won  vast  admiration  from  all  on 
board.  To  the  old,  she  was  a  warm  and  glancing  sunbeam  ;  to 
the  young,  she  was  a  realization  of  their  most  ardent  dreams  of 
joy  and  love. 

The  fatlier  made  a  strange  contrast  with  his  daughter.  He 
was  a  hard-featured,  tall,  saturnine,  reserved,  unbending  man. 
They  stood  together  now,  on  the  edge  of  the  blazing  flotilla, 
watching  the  receding  and  overladen  boats. 


BY  AND  BY.  123 

On  the  crowded  benches  of  these  was  many  a  young  man 
who,  during  the  brief  sojourn  at  sea,  had  learnt  to  regard  the 
fair  Scotch  lassie  with  feelings  akin  to  adoration,  but  in  the 
excitement  of  the  catastrophe  had  forgotten  everything  but  self- 
preservation.  It  must  be  said  on  their  behalf,  that  the  forbid- 
ding aspect  of  the  father  had  kept  them  all  at  too  great  a  dis- 
tance to  allow  of  anything  like  an  intimacy. 

Presently  a  cry  arose  from  them — 

"  Nannie  !  we  must  save  Nannie  !  Jump,  Nannie,  and  we 
will  pick  you  up ! " 

Nannie's  face  brightened  for  a  moment,  less  at  the  idea  of 
being  saved,  than  in  pride  of  conquest.  Mechanically  she 
looked  up  into  her  father's  face.  The  grim  resolution  she  read 
there  arrested  her  impulse  to  fling  herself  into  the  water,  as 
bidden  by  her  admirers  in  the  boats. 

And  now  between  those  who  were  for  saving  Nannie,  and 
those  who  were  eager  to  get  further  from  the  burning  wrecks,  a 
clamor  arose.  The  old  Scotchman  made  no  sign  to  guide  her. 
The  resolution  with  which  she  adhered  to  his  side  touched  him 
not.  The  fact  was,  he  loved  her  not.  His  was  only  the  self-love 
of  a  cold,  austere  disposition.  How  such  a  fair,  tender  wild- 
flower  had  ever  come  to  spring  upon  the  bleak  mountain  side  of 
a  nature  like  his,  was  a  mystery  even  to  himself.  He  saw  noth- 
ing of  himself  in  her;  and  in  his  heart  he  reproached  her  with 
being  all  her  mother's — that  mother  who  had  pined  away 
beneath  his  chilling  influence,  and,  after  producing  three  fair 
and  lovely  daughters,  was  buried  in  the  Highland  home,  which 
soon  afterwards  he  deserted  for  the  slopes  of  Atlantika.  One 
daughter  had  recently  died  ;  another,  the  eldest,  was  married 
and  settled  in  Africa ;  and  he  was  now  taking  this  one,  and  all 
his  possessions,  to  the  new  settlements  in  South  America. 

Untrained  by  discipline,  and  unregulated  by  reason,  Nannie 
was  entirely  a  creature  of  impulse.  She  knew  neither  fear  for 
herself,  nor  love  for  her  father ;  but  some  blind  instinct  made 
her  say  to  herself, 

"  At  least,  if  he  cannot  love  me,  he  shall  not  be  ashamed  of 
me." 


124  BY  ^j.^D  BY. 

So,  in  reply  to  those  who  bade  her  jump  and  be  saved,  she 
calmly  took  her  father's  hand,  and  said, 

"  Not  alone  !  I  cannot  be  saved  by  myself  ! " 

Then  she  whispered  to  him, 

"Father,  shall  we  jump?  I  am  sure  they-  will  save  us 
both." 

"  Do  as  you  please,"  was  his  reply.  "  For  myself,  I  have 
never  in  my  life  accepted  a  favor  from  any  man,  and  I  am  too 
old  to  begin  now." 

Nannie  was  terribly  perplexed.  She  had  always  been  ready 
to  accept,  and  eager  to  serve,  and  she  understood  not  her 
father's  disposition. 

Her  attention  was  drawn  from  her  perplexity  by  another 
shout,  differing  altgether  in  character  from  the  last,  for  there 
was  in  it  a  tone  of  joyousness. 

Above  the  crackling  of  the  flames  was  heard  the  sound  of  a 
signal,  exploding  at  a  distance ;  then  another,  nearer ;  and 
another,  so  much  louder  as  to  indicate  that  they  proceeded  from 
a  swift  ship  of  the  air,  and  no  comparatively  slow  toiler  of  the 
sea. 

All  listened  and  looked  intently.  Presently  a  tiny  aeroir.Q- 
tive  settled  down  upon  the  water  between  the  boats  and  tli..' 
blazing  wreck.  Its  diminutiveness  caused  a  thrill  of  disap- 
pointment in  every  breast.  Adapted  but  for  one  or  two  person:., 
it  was  evidently  incapable  of  aiding  in  the  present  dreadful 
emergency.     But  a  clear  voice  arose  from  it,  saying, 

"  Take  courage  !  A  fleet  of  aeromotives  will  soon  be  here. 
I  have  outstripped  it,  to  give  you  notice.  But  I  can  save  one 
now,  at  once.     Will  anyone  come  with  me  ?  " 

It  was  Christmas  Carol  who  spoke.  He  had  joined  Bertie 
on  his  last  trip  with  the  emigrants,  and  they  were  now  on  their 
way  home  together  over  the  Atlantic.  The  glare  of  the  confla- 
gration had  reached  them  at  a  vast  distance,  when  high  up  in 
the  air,  whither  they  had  ascended  in  order  to  escape  the  con- 
trary trade  winds.  Criss  was  travelling  in  his  Ariel,  and  keep- 
ing company  with  the  convoy,  when  he  caught  sight  of  the  fire. 
He  only  paused  to  shout  to  Bertie  that  it  must  be  a  ship  that 


BY   AND  BT.  125 

was  burning,  and  that  he  would  hurry  on,  and  announce  the 
coming  of  the  rest. 

In  answer  to  his  question,  "  Will  anyone  come  with  me  ?  " 
there  rose  once  more  the  cry, — 

"Nannie  !  Nannie  !     Save  yon  fair-haired  lassie  ! '' 

In  a  moment  he  had  risen  from  the  water,  and  was  grasping 
the  rail  at  the  edge  of  the  burning  deck,  against  which  the  re- 
maining passengers  were  crowded  together."  There  was  no  need 
to  ask  which  was  Nannie.  The  looks  of  all  sufficiently  indicated 
her,  as,  clad  in  little  beside  her  long  white  night-dress  and 
flowing  golden  hair,  she  stood  mute  and  trembling  by  her 
father's  side. 

"Have  a  little  patience,"  said  Criss  to  the  poor  people,  "you 
will  all  be  taken  off  soon.  Come,  little  one,"  he  added  to 
Nannie,  "  I  will  take  you  safely  anywhere  you  wish  to  go." 

Scarce  knowing  what  she  did,  she  took  his  hand  and  stepped 
into  the  car,  her  father  being  apparently  too  bewildered  to  be 
capable  of  any  decision. 

"  Where  would  you  like  to  find  her  ?  "  asked  Criss  of  the  old 
man. 

"  At  her  sister's,"  was  the  tardy  response. 

"  Very  good,"  said  Criss  ;  "  at  her  sister's,  wherever  that  may 
be,  you  shall  find  her  safe.  When  the  convoy  comes,  tell  the 
leader  that  he  is  to  bring  you  thither  as  soon  as  possible.  Good 
bye ! "  And  amid  a  ringing  shoiit  he  darted  aloft,  bearing 
Nannie  with  him. 

She,  on  her  side,  seemed  to  partake  of  the  general  stupefac- 
tion. The  shouting  and  the  rapidity  of  the  ascent  recalled  her 
to  consciousness. 

"  Oh,  my  father !  my  father ! "  she  cried,  "  do  save  my 
father ! " 

"  Fear  not  for  him,  little  one,"  said  Criss.  "  See !  yonder 
come  the  great  air-ships,  in  time  to  save  them  all.  Their 
captain  is  a  good  kind  man,  and  will  soon  bring  your  father  to 
you — to  us — for  I  shall  not  leave  you  until  I  see  you  safe  with 
him." 

His  voice  re-assured  her,  as  no  voice  had  ever  before  done, 
and  allayed  the  beating  of  her  wild  and  eager  heart. 


126         '  BY  AND  BT. 

"  But  when  and  where  will  that  be  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  At  your  sister's  ?     Did  you  not  hear  him  say  so  ?  " 

"  You  are  going  to  take  me  all  that  way  ?  and  by  ourselves 
too  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know  where,  or  how  far  '  all  that  way '  may  be ; 
but  I  intend  to  take  you  every  inch  of  it,  no  matter  w  here.  By 
the  way,  what  is  your  sister's  address  ?  " 

"The  Elephant  Tarm,  Yolo,  Mount  Atlantika,  Central 
Africa." 

"Very  good,  then.  At  the  Elephant  Farm,  Yolo,  Mount 
Atlantika,  Central  Africa,  you  will  in  a  few  hours  have  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  your  father." 

And  glancing  at  the  stars,  Criss  turned  a  handle  and  gave 
the  Ariel  an  easterly  direction. 

"And  now,"  he  said,  "as  we  are  no  longer  going  upwards, 
but  horizontally,  and  shall  meet  the  air  more  rapidly,  you  had 
better  let  me  put  some  of  these  wrapj:)ers  round  you.  The  tro- 
pical dress  you  brought  from  the  ship  is  hardly  sufficient  for 
this  elevation." 

And  he  opened  a  locker  in  the  compartment  of  the  car,  where 
they  were  together. 

"  Dear  me ! "  exclaimed  the  child,  "  I  quite  forgot  I  had  so 
little  on.  I  escaped  from  my  berth  in  such  haste,  that  I  had 
no  time  to  think  of  shoes  or  stockings.  See  ! "  she  cried,  half 
hysterically,  thrusting  out  the  tiniest  white  foot  from  beneath 
the  scanty  dress. 

"  Well,"  said  Criss,  "  so  long  as  we  can  keep  you  warm,  Ave 
need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  being  smart  up  here.  The 
angels  are  not  particular  about  dress,  and  besides  they  know 
how  to  make  allowances  for  poor  mortals  of  earth,  so  that  they 
will  not  be  affronted." 

He  saw  that  the  poor  child  was  disposed  to  whimper  over  the 
scantiness  of  her  attire;  but  the  way  he  took  it  relieved  her 
vastly. 

"  I  do  think,"  she  said,  "  that  you  must  be  an  angel.  You 
don't  laugh  at  me  as  any  other  man  would  have  done.  Had  it 
been  Prank,  I  should  never  have  heard  the  last  of  it." 


BY  ANB  BY.  127 

"Well,"  said  Criss,  "I  do  live  a  good  deal  in  the  sky,  so 
perhaps  I  am  on  the  road  towards  being  one.  Probably  'Frank' 
would  toll  you  that  you  do  not  require  such  a  course  to  convert 
you  into  one  also.     Is  it  not  so?" 

Nannie  smiled  and  shook  her  head. 

"Frank  is  my  brother-in-law,  and  I  suspect  he  knows  me  too 
well  to  think  anything  of  the  sort,"  she  remarked. 

"I  am  glad,"  resumed  Criss,  "to  find  you  are  not  timid  at 
travelling  in  this  way.     Have  you  ever  been  aloft  before  ?  " 

"  Oh  no  !  I  should  have  been  frightened  out  of  my  senses 
had  I  known  I  was  going  to  do  it ;  but  it  all  happened  in  such 
a  hurry  that  I  forgot  to  be  frightened.  And — and — somehow, 
you  make  one  forget  one's  fears.  Wliy,  I  am  not  even  fright- 
ened at  finding  myself  all  alone  up  here  with  a  perfect  stran- 
ger, and  with  only  these  few  things  on.  I  can't  think  wh}-  it 
is." 

Her  artless  ways  and  wondrous  beaut}^  delighted  Criss.  He 
saw  that  she  was  yet  more  child  than  woman,  though,  perhaps, 
oarrj'ing  on  her  childhood  somewhat  further  than  usual  into  the 
domain  of  womanhood.  He  divined  in  some  degree  the  grounds 
of  her  confidence,  and  he  argued  from  it  that  she  had  a  true 
and  genuine  nature. 

"  No  one  ever  thinks  of  being  frightened  in  heaven,"  he 
said ;  "  and  while  here  j^ou  must  be  an  angel  in  courage,  as 
Avell  as  in  everything  else,  including  a  short  allowance  of 
clothing." 

"Not  even  of  the  other — the — the — gentlemen  angels?"  she 
asked,  with  an  arch  look,  which  broke  into  a  smile,  and  spread 
like  a  glory  of  sunshine  over  her  whole  face,  till  Criss  fairly 
gasped  at  the  memory  it  recalled.  For  she  exactly  resembled 
the  bride-angel  of  whose  face  he  had  caught  a  glimpse  at  the 
supreme  moment  of  her  rapture. 

"  Why  you  are  the  exact  image  of  an  angel,"  exclaimed  Criss. 
"  No  wonder  you  take  so  naturally  to  heaven." 

"  And  are  you  one,  too  ?  "  asked  Nannie. 

"Now  that  is  a  point  I  shall  leave  you  to  determine  by  expe- 
rience," said  Criss.     "  But  I  shall  insist  on  your  eating  some- 


128  BY  AND  BY. 

thing  now,  and  then  lying  down  and  going  to  sleop.  The 
angels  do  not  neglect  those  duties,  I  assure  you.  So,  after  you 
have  eaten  some  of  these  dried  fruits  and  hiscuits,  and  drank  a 
glass  of  this  liqueur,  I  shall  expect  you  to  lie  down  on  this 
couch,  and  sleep  very  soundly  as  long  as  you  can." 
"  And  what  becomes  of  you  ?  "  she  asked. 
"Oh,  I  have  another  compartment  on  the  other  side  of  this 
panel,  which  I  occupy  sometimes.  But  for  to-night  I  am  going 
to  stay  up  overhead  in  the  rigging,  Avhere  I  have  a  little  nest, 
and  shall  not  be  near  enough  to  disturb  you." 

And  he  proceeded  to  feed  her  with  tender  assiduity,  yet  not 
so  as  to  excite  any  sense  of  strangeness  or  difference,  and 
thereby  throw  her  back  upon  herself. 

Then  he  spread  some  furs  for  her  on  the  little  couch,  and 
bidding  her  be  sure  to  call  him  if  she  wanted  anything,  he  took 
one  of  her  hands  in  one  of  his,  and  pressed  his  other  hand  on 
her  head,  and  seemed  for  a  few  moments  to  be  murmuring  some- 
thing, as  if  in  blessing  or  in  praj^er;  while  his  eyes  covered  her 
with  a  graA-e  and  kindly  glance,  which  allayed  whatever  still 
remained  of  tremor  at  the  novelty  of  her  position. 
*'Do  you  think  you  will  sleep  well?"  he  enquired. 
''Oh,  yes,  soundly.  But — but — "  and  her  look  and  voice 
wandered,  as  if  uncertain  what  it  was  she  wished  to  say. 

''I  can  guess  what  you  were  thinking  of,"  said  Criss,  softly. 
"You  Avere  wishing  for  the  accustomed  kiss  before  going  to 
bed." 

"  Everybody  who  used  to  kiss  me  died  long  ago,"  said  Nannie. 
"But  I  was  feeling  as  if  I  should  like  to  be  said  f/ood  nlyht  to 
projierly,  for  once.  Though  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  how  you 
knew  it." 

Criss  saw  that  a  spell  was  working  on  her  to  compel  a  deep 
sleep,  and  that  to  balk  her  longing  would  break  it.  He  wished 
her  to  sleep  during  the  swift  passage  through  the  keen  upper 
airs,  by  which  he  intended  to  make  for  the  land. 

"  Give  me  both  your  hands,  and  look  straight  into  my  eyes," 
he  said.  "  And  now  tell  me,  Nannie  (you  see,  I  couldn't  help 
knowing  your  name,  when  all  those   people   called  it  out  so 


BY  AND  BY.  129 

loudly — it  is  the  only  name  of  yours  I  know),  tell  me,  do  you 
trust  me  entirely?" 

"  I  suppose  I  must,  as  I  can't  help  myself,"  she  said,  with  a 
look  half  saucy  and  half  sleepy. 

"Then,  for  being  a  good  girl,  and  not  letting  yourself  be 
frightened,  I  give  you  this  kiss,  by  way  of  saying  good  night 
'  properly,'  and  after  it  you  must  sleep  soundly  as  long  as  you 
can." 

As  he  spoke,  her  head  inclined  towards  him,  and  he  pressed 
a  kiss  upon  her  brow.  Then  springing  up  into  the  rigging,  he 
left  her  to  herself.  After  a  short  consultation  with  his  chart 
and  his  compass,  and  ascertaining  his  position,  he  turned  his 
lamp  downwards,  and  glanced  at  his  passenger,  and  was  de- 
lighted to  see  that  she  was  in  a  profound  sleep. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

Knowing  the  resources  within  reach  of  the  shipwrecked 
folks,  Criss  did  not  further  trouble  himself  about  them.  It 
only  required  tolerably  fine  weather  to  save  them  from  discom- 
fort during  the  few  days  it  would  take  for  aid  to  reach  them 
from  the  nearest  port,  and  such  weather  they  were  likely  to 
have  at  that  season  in  those  seas. 

The  scene  of  the  catastrophe  lay  about  mid-way  between  the 
two  continents ;  so  that  the  distance  he  must  traverse  in  order 
to  place  Nannie  in  her  sister's  arms,  was  about  thirty  degrees 
of  east  longi-tude,  and  forty-five  of  north  latitude.  At  his  or- 
dinary speed,  this  would  take  him  the  best  part  of  twenty-four 
hours;  but  a  pause  might  be  necessary,  both  for  the  puri)ose  of 
obtaining  the  precise  situation  of  the  place  of  his  destination, 
and  to  avoid  arriving  in  the  night.  Besides,  Criss  had  never 
before  carried  a  passenger  of  feminine  gender,  and  he  had  a 
vague  notion  that  all  such  were  a  kittle  sort  of  cattle,  and  likely 
9 


130  BY  AND  BY. 

to  require  things  with  which  he  was  altogether  unprovided, 
and  which  were  obtainable  only  on  land,  and  in  civilized  places. 

So,  observing  that  he  was  in  the  precise  latitude  of  the  Orange 
River,  and  tluxt  this  was  also  the  nearest  point  of  the  continent, 
he  determined  to  make  straight  for  the  land,  where  he  would 
be  within  reach  of  anything  Nannie  might  require;  and  then 
run  northwards  to  Soudan,  keeping  between  the  fifteenth  and 
twentieth  parallels  of  longitude. 

It  was  night  again  when  he  sighted  the  coast,  and  saw  the 
broad  silver  streak  of  the  great  South  African  stream  far  below 
him. 

Nannie  had  slept  the  whole  day ;  but  now,  after  a  few  uneasy 
movements,  she  woke,  and  murmured  some  words,  the  meaning 
of  which  he  could  not  catch.  Then,  remembering  what  had 
hajipened,  she  called  to  him,  a  little  querulously,  he  thought, 

"  Mr.  Angel !  are  you  there  ?  " 

"All  right,"  returned  Criss,  descending  to  her.  "What  a 
nice  long  sleep  you  have  had." 

"Long  !     Why,  it  isn't  day  yet.     And  oh,  I  am  so  hungry." 

"  You  have  a  right  to  be,"  said  Criss ;  "  for  you  have  slept 
all  night  and  all  day  too,  until  it  is  night  again." 

"And  have  we  been  travelling  all  the  time?  Have  you  not 
been  asleep  too  ?  " 

"Well,  you  have  lost  nothing  by  sleeping  so  long,"  he  said; 
"  for  we  have  been  traversing  the  monotonous  ocean.  But  now, 
if  you  are  quite  awake,  and  are  not  afraid  to  look  out,  you  will 
see  one  of  the  prettiest  sights  in  the  world ;  for  you  will  see  the 
earth  asleep,  and  the  glimmer  of  lights  on  the  land,  and  the 
sheen  of  stars  in  the  rivers,  and  the  outlines  of  hills,  and  rail- 
ways, and  plantations.  For  we  have  reached  Africa,  in  its  rich 
and  populous  districts  of  the  South.  See  yonder  bright  cluster 
of  lights;  that  is  the  capital — the  great  city  of  Orange.  To- 
morrow we  shall  be  going  northwards,  towards  your  home  ;  but 
you  must  let  me  know  if  you  want  anything  likely  to  be  got  in 
shops,  before  we  go  far  in  that  direction,  as  the  white  people 
don't  extend  all  the  way." 

"Oh,  yes,  thank  you.  I  shall  like  so  much  to  go  shopping," 
cried  Nannie ;  "  but — but  I  have  no  money !  " 


BY  AND  BY.  131 

"  That,  I  assure  you,  is  of  no  consequence,"  said  Criss,  laugh- 
ing. "  The  Ariel's  passengers  never  feel  the  want  of  that. 
Why,  Nannie,  what  is  wrong  now  ?  "  for  she  was  beginning  to 
cry. 

"I  can't  go, shopping  like  this,"  she  said  piteously,  looking 
at  the  rough  wrapper  with  which  sh.e  was  covered.  "  One  always 
puts  on  one's  best  things  to  go  shopping  in." 

"Well,"  said  Criss,  'Hhat  is  a  difficulty,  certainly,  as  even 
Avith  that  elegant  poncho  on  you,  the  people  would  be  sure  to 
remark  something  unusual.  It  would  hardly  do  for  me  to  leave 
the  Ariel  in  your  charge,  while  I  went  shopping  for  you.  But 
if  you  really  dislike  to  go  to  your  sister  as  you  are,  I  will  tell 
you  what  we  can  do.  I  will  descend  nearly  to  the  earth,  over 
some  town,  and  let  down  a  line  with  a  message  and  some 
money,  and  they  will  send  up  whatever  we  order,  without 
knowing  anything  at  all  about  us." 

"  Oh,  do  ;  that  will  be  charming,"  cried  Nannie.  "  And  even 
if  the  things  don't  fit,  I  shall  not  look  quite  so  foolish  when  I 
get  home.     I  can't  bear  to  be  laughed  at." 

So  they  journeyed  slowly  northwards,  so  as  not  to  be  beyond 
a  white  town  when  morning  came,  Nannie  undertaking  in  the 
meantime  to  make  out  a  list  of  the  things  she  wanted. 

At  first  on  looking  down  through  the  aperture  provided  for 
that  purpose,  Nanny  declared  that  she  could  see  nothing,  and 
that  it  made  her  quite  giddy.  Criss  urged  her  to  persevere, 
saying  she  would  soon  get  used  to  it,  and  that  she  must  practice 
now  in  order  to  be  his  guide  when  they  neared  her  home.  At 
the  same  time  he  let  the  Ariel  approach  nearer  to  the  earth. 

Nanny  was  delighted  when  she  found  she  could  look  down 
Avithout  being  giddy. 

"  I  see  everything  quite  well." 

"It  shows,"  said  Criss,  "what  a  sedate  character  yours  must 
be,  when  you  can  so  easily  get  rid  of  giddiness." 

"  They  call  me  wild-cat,  at  home,"  she  said,  "  and  declare 
that  I  shall  never  be  anything  else  than  giddy.  And  it  is 
quite  true,  I  assure  you  it  is.  Oh,  I  am  such  a  wicked  creature. 
There's  no  mischief  I  wouldn't  do,  when  I  am  in  the  mind 
for  it." 


132  BY  AND  BY. 

"  But  you  can  be  equally  good  and  kind  and  nice,  at  other 
times,  to  balance  it,  I  am  sure." 

"  I  can  do  anj-one  a  kindness,  if  I  like  them.  But  I  am  not 
allowed  to  like  an^^  I  should  like  to  like.  My  father  is  very 
strict  with  me ;  much  more  so  than  he  was  with  my  sisters. 
He  saj's  I  am  different  from  them  in  disposition,  though  we  are 
not  so  very  much  unlike  in  other  ways.  If  you  heard  my 
sister  speak,  I  am  sure  you  would  think  it  was  me." 

"  Is  your  sister  fair,  too  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  the  loveliest  little  creature  in  the  world.  You  will 
be  sure  to  think  me  ugly  when  you  have  seen  her.  But  she  is 
not  so  little,  after  all,  when  you  come  to  look  at  her.  Only 
there  is  something  so  delicate  and  fairy-like  about  all  her  ways, 
that  one  doesn't  see  how  big  she  really  is." 

"  And  I  suppose  she  is  as  happy  as  a  wife  and  mother,  as  you 
hope  to  be  some  day  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Frank  dotes  on  her ;  more  than  she  deserves,  I  think  ; 
for  I  don't  see  that  she  is  so  much  better  than  I  am.  Are  you 
married  ?  " 

"  No  ;  I  consider  myself  but  as  a  boy,  yet.  The  week  after 
next  will  be  my  birthday,  when  I  shall  come  of  age ;  and  I 
shall  be  at  home  with  my  friends." 

"  So  you  will  be  going  away  from  us  almost  directly  after  we 
arrive.  I  wish  you  were  not  going  to  see  my  sister.  You  won't 
think  anything  of  me  then." 

Morning  broke  while  they  were  still  chattering,  for  being 
near  Christmas  time,  it  was  high  summer  in  those  latitudes,  and 
soon  the  flood  of  daylight  enabled  them  to  see  every  detail  of 
the  country  beneath  and  around  them,  down  to  its  houses  and 
gardens,  and  tiny  irrigated  rills,  and  patches  of  dark  woods ; 
and  Nanny  said  she  wished  her  father  had  settled  in  that 
beautiful  countr}^,  among  people  of  his  own  color,  instead  of  in 
the  hot,  central  parts.     And  then  she  exclaimed, — 

"  How  surprised  Mattie  will  be  to  see  me.  She  thought  she 
had  got  rid  of  me  for  ever.  I  wonder  what  father  will  do  : 
whether  he  Avill  give  up  his  plan  of  settling  in  America,  and 
stay  at  Yolo." 


BY  AND  BY.  133 

Ci-iss  suggested  that  it  would  i:)robably  depend  on  tlie  amount 
of  loss  he  might  have  had  by  the  wreck. 

"  Oh,"  cried  Nannie,  "  I  never  thought  of  that.  He  had 
everything  he  owned  in  the  world  with  him.     And  so  had  I, 

and — and "     And  here  she  broke  into  an  agony  of  tears. 

Presently  she  resumed: 

"  I  have  lost  all  my  nice  clothes  ;  and  perhaps  father  won't 
be  able  to  buy  me  more ;  and  Mattie  hates  my  taking  hers. 
She  says  they  are  too  smart  for  me.  Oh,  dear !  what  shall  I 
do  !  I  dread  now  going  back  to  her.  Of  course,  we  shan't  be 
able  to  get  anything  on  the  way  fit  to  be  seen  in.  And  now  I 
think  of  it,  it  will  be  such  fun  to  arrive  with  only  these  things 
on.  She  must  let  me  have  some  of  hers  then.  She  will  be  so 
mad.  But  I  know  what  will  reconcile  her.  She  likes  beauti- 
ful men.     When  she  sees  you,  she  will  be  reconciled." 

And,  full  of  this  last  notion,  she  decided  that  she  would  not 
purchase  anything  on  the  way. 

This  character,  so  new  to  Criss,  needed  a  key,  for  which,  just 
now,  he  had  little  leisure  to  seek.  But  while  he  was  at  a  loss 
to  harmonize  her  utterances,  he  was  at  no  loss  to  derive  huge 
satisfaction  from  the  contemplation  of  her  wonderfully  mobile 
and  expressive  face,  through  which  every  variation  of  thought 
and  mood  showed  itself  in  sunniest  smiles, — a  smile  not  re- 
stricted to  the  region  of  the  mouth,  butvhich  was  equally  in 
her  eyes  and  all  over  her  face, — or  a  petulant  pout.  Her  intense 
and  thorough  vitality  produced  perpetual  motion  in  her  mind, 
and  a  corresponding  activity  in  her  body. 

"  I  never  could  have  believed,"  she  said  to  Criss,  "  that  I 
could  have  kept  still  so  long  in  such  a  little  place  as  this,  with- 
out jumping  out.  I  believe  it  is  only  because  the  car  itself 
keeps  always  moving  so  fast,  that  I  am  able  to  remain  in  it." 

Certainly,  the  energy  and  vivacity  of  every  limb  and  feature 
did  irresistibly  indicate  that  everj^  inch  of  her  was  thoroughly 
alive,  and  so  Criss  told  her, 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  complacently.  "  I  am  not  a  log.  My 
grandmother  in  Scotland  used  always  to  call  me  a  restless  pen- 
n'orth." 


134  BY  AND  BY. 

Presently  she  said, — 

"  How  fond  yon  ninst  bo  of  travelling  in  the  air.  I  am  sure 
father  never  tried  it,  or  he  would  not  have  called  it  wicked." 

"Is  that  why  he  hesitated  Avhen  I  offered  to  take  you  off  the 
wreck  ?     I  thought  it  was  merely  bewilderment  and  alarm." 

"It  was  parti}'  all  of  them,  I  tliiidv,"  returned  Nannie.  "He 
saj^s  it  is  presumptuous  in  man  to  traverse  the  skies  like  a  bird, 
as  Providence  never  intended  us  to  do  so,  or  it  would  have 
given  us  wings." 

"  Dear  me  !  "  said  Criss,  "  Do  such  notions  prevail  in  Scot- 
land, at  this  time  of  day  ?  " 

"  Well,  not  generally,  I  believe ;  but  father  always  keeps  to 
'the  good  old  paths,'  as  he  calls  them,  and  says  he  is  one  of  'the 
Remnant,' — though  what  that  is,  I  am  sure  I  don't  know. 
And  he  hates  to  associate  with  people  who  follow  modern  ways. 
I  never  knew  him  make  friends  with  anybody.  He  calls 
himself  one  of  the  true  old  Highland  stock,  and  thinks  no  one 
good  enough  for  him.  Oh,  he  is  so  proud,  is  my  father.  I 
believe  it  was  his  pride,  as  much  as  his  jealousy,  that  killed  my 
mother." 

Criss  did  not  care  to  draw  the  child  out  respecting  her 
father's  faults  of  character,  though  he  felt  not  a  little  curious 
to  learn  the  circumstances  which  had  combined  to  produce  such 
a  nature  as  hers.  He  was  aware  that  the  great  burst  of  free 
thought  with  which,  about  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, Scotland  had  astonished  the  world,  had  left,  as  in  Eng- 
land, a  small  sectiort  of  its  people  comparatively  untouched. 
So  he  only  remarked, — 

"  With  such  views,  it  must  have  gone  very  much  against  the 
grain  with  your  father  to  leave  his  home  and  travel  by  railway 
and  electric  ship." 

"  Oh,  no.  Why  ?  Everybody  has  done  that  for  ever  so  long. 
It  is  only  the  air-travelling  he  thinks  wrong." 

"  Ah,  I  uiulerstood  you  to  say  that  he  holds  it  right  to  use 
only  the  bodily  faculties  with  which  we  are  born,  and  not  seek 
to  improve  upon  them." 

"  Well/'  she  said,  evidently  perplexed,  "  I  suppose  it  is  not 


BY   AND  BY.  1.15 

being  used  to  things  that  often  makes  people  think  them  pre- 
sumptuous and  wrong." 

"  The  earth  looks  as  if  it  were  dropping  away  below  us  ! 
What  makes  it  do  that  ?  " 

Kannie's  exclamation  was  due  to  the  sudden  and  rapid  ascent 
of  the  Ariel.  For  the  sun  had  risen  high,  and  they  were  enter- 
ing upon  a  region  where  it  was  necessary  to  ascend  in  quest  of 
cooler  air.  Criss  had  deflected  from  his  direct  course  in  order 
to  obtain  a  view  of  that  region  so  long  a  mystery  to  the  world, 
which  extends  from  equatorial  Africa  due  south  through  the 
centre  of  the  continent,  and  contains,  inextricably  interlaced, 
the  sources  of  the  three  great  rivers,  the  Congo,  the  Zambesi, 
and  the  Nile,  and  of  the  series  of  marshes  which  cover  almost 
the  whole  of  aSTigritia — a  region  now  known  as  the  headquarters 
of  the  greatest  of  black  civilizations,  and  richest  of  all  coun- 
tries in  vegetable  and  mineral  production. 

Nannie  had  told  Criss  at  what  hour  on  the  morrow  she  would 
prefer  to  arrive  at  her  sister's — it  was  the  hour  at  which  she 
would  be  likely  to  find  her  alone — and  ther£  was  plenty  of  time 
to  make  tbe  detour.  So  they  passed  over  the  mountain  ranges 
which  stretched  far  away  to  the  east  and  west ;  and  Criss 
pointed  out  to  her  the  diverging  streams  and  told  her  of  their 
ultimate  destination,  and  of  the  long  impenetrable  mystery  of 
the  Nile,  and  of  the  famous  traveller  who,  in  ages  long  past, 
had  devoted  himself  to  its  discovery,  and  to  the  abrogation  of 
the  dreadful  trade  in  human  beings  which  had  made  that  fair 
region  a  very  place  of  torment  for  millions  of  people  throughout 
hundreds  of  generations. 

At  length  they  reached  a  vast  and  busy  tract,  teeming  with 
rivers  and  lakes,  fields  and  factories,  railways  and  electro-ships, 
and  all  the  other  signs  which  indicate  the  neighborhood  of  a 
great  capital ;  and  then  a  large  and  gorgeous  city  burst  upon 
their  view. 

"That,"  said  Criss,  "is  a  city  with  the  name  of  which  you 
must  be  familiar.  The  people  of  the  country  call  it  after  a 
countryman   of  yours — the   traveller  to  whom   I  was  referring 


330  liT  AND  BY. 

just  now — and  whom  they  justly  regarded  as  their  deliverer  and 
benefactor,  and  wlio  holds  the  first  place  in  their  sacred  calen- 
dar.    For  that  is  the  city  of  St.  Livingstone." 

"  Dear  me ! "  cried  Nannie,  "  1  never  knew  he  was  a  real 
man.  My  father  saj'S  there  never  were  such  people  as  the 
Saints,  but  that  their  names  and  histories  were  invented  to  suit 
some  fancy." 

"The  same  lias  been  said  of  this  one,"  replied  Criss  ;  "and 
the  very  name  has  been  adduced  as  a  proof  of  the  unreality  of 
his  history.  For  mankind  has  always  regarded  stones  with,  su- 
perstitious veneration,  and  from  the  earliest  ages  made  them 
objects  of  worship.  The  Bible  tells  of  Abraham  and  Jacob 
and  the  Israelites  paying  respect  to  stones.  The  ancient 
Greeks  represented  the  earth  as  re-peopled  from  stones  thrown 
by  Pyrrha  and  Deucalion  after  the  flood.  The  founder  of  the 
Cliristian  religion  was  called  a  corner-stone,  and  the  famous 
church  of  that  denomination  was  said  to  be  founded  upon  a 
stone,  for  such  was  the  signification  of  Peter's  name.  There 
was  also  the  Caaba,  the  sacred  stone  which  symbolized  the  an- 
cient worship  of  Arabia.  Not  to  tire  you  with  too  many  in- 
stances, the  great  German  people  ascribe  their  rise  to  the  Baron 
von  Stein,  or  Stone,  who  first  drilled  them  and  made  them  a 
nation  of  soldiers  and  able  to  withstand  the  French.  And 
now  we  find  a  livi^ig  stone  the  patron  saint,  deity  almost,  of  all 
this  region  of  Africa.  Yet  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
he  was  a  real  man;  as  probably  were  some  of  the  others  I  have 
named." 

It  was  night  when  they  passed  the  equator.  Criss  was  now 
steering  straight  for  the  mountain  on  which  Nannie's  relations 
dwelt. — AtlantUca — which  reared  its  ten  thousand  feet  at  a 
distance  of  some  two  hundred  miles  south  of  the  Bornouse  cap- 
ital on  Lake  Tchad,  the  metropolis  and  centre  of  the  empire  of 
Soudan,  or  Central  Africa.  A  long  stretch  of  mountain,  marsh 
and  desert,  separated  the  empire  from  the  more  southern  com- 
munities they  had  just  left ;  the  principal  characteristic  of  the 
region  being  its  vast  system  of  waters,  which  find  their  chief 
outlet  through  the  process  of  evaporation.     The  continent  here 


BY  AND  BY.  137 

is  divided  mainly  into  two  great  valleys.  Throixgli  one  runs  tlie 
Nile,  which  after  forcing  its  way  through  the  Libyan  desert, 
and  depositing  a  kingdom  on  the  route,  finds  an  exit  into  tin; 
Mediterranean.  The  other,  consisting  of  immense  and  nearly 
level  alluvial  tracts,  forms  a  series  of  vast  swamps,  througli 
which  runs  one  continuovis  stream,  whose  sovxrces  lie  contiguous 
to  those  of  the  Nile,  and  whose  termination  is  in  Lake  Tchad 
and  the  great  marshy  region  which  there  bounds  the  Sahara. 
Looking  at  this  region  with  the  eyes  of  his  guardian,  Avenil, 
Criss  said  to  himself, 

"  What  a  country,  if  only  it  were  properly  drained ! " 

Nannie  was  awake  with  the  dawn,  and  eagerly  straining  her 
eyes  to  catch  sight  of  the  mountain.  At  first  she  insisted  that 
every  hill  she  saw  was  Atlantika,  so  excited  did  the  thought 
of  her  return  make  her.  But  Criss  turned  to  his  own  reckon- 
ings rather  than  to  her  reminiscences  of  what,  from  that  point 
of  view,  she  had  never  beheld,  and  therefore  was  unlikely  to 
recognize. 

Towards  noon,  Nannie's  recognitions  and  Criss's  calculations 
showed  symptoms  of  reconciliation.  The  Ariel  flew  low  as  it 
passed  round  the  eastern  side  of  the  mountain,  towards  the 
northern  slope  where  the  settlement  lay.  At  length  the  Ele- 
phant Farm  appeared  plainly  but  a  little  way  off ;  with,  to 
Nannie's  great  surprise  and  disappointment,  the  whole  of  her 
sister's  family  assembled  on  the  lawn,  pointing  upwards  and 
gesticulating  as  if  on  the  watch  for  her. 

"  Tell  me,"  said  Criss,  "  is  the  garden  wired  over,  or  can  we 
descend  into  it  ?  " 

Nannie  asked  what  he  meant. 

"  At  home,"  he  said,  "  we  have  to  place  strong  network 
fences  of  wire  over  any  place  we  wish  to  keep  private  from 
aerialists.  If  your  garden  is  fenced  so,  we  cannot  go  down 
into  it." 

Nannie  declared  that  she  had  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  in 
that  country,  and  that  she  believed  ballooning  was  not  allowed, 
or  not  practised  there. 


138  BY  AND  BY. 

"  But  look  ! ''  she  exclaimed  ;  "  thoy  see  us  ami  expect  us, 
and  I  wanted  to  surprise  them." 

A  few  moments  more,  and  the  car  touched  the  ground  in  the 
midst  of  the  excited  party,  and  Kannie,  stepping  out  of  it,  was 
embraced  by  one,  who  to  Criss  seemed  another  Xannie,  only  a 
little  older  and  fuller  in  figure,  so  strong  was  the  likeness  be- 
tween the  two  sisters.  There  was  the  same  wealth  of  golden 
hair,  the  same  broad  fair  brow,  the  same  quick  and  laughing 
grey-blue  eyes,  the  same  vivacity  of  -glance,  the  same  exqui- 
sitely formed  mouth  and  chin,  and  clever  little  nose,  the  same 
determined  little  thumb,  lithe  figure,  and  daintily-turned  limbs. 

A  fine,  pleasant-looking  man,  the  husband,  whom  Criss  al- 
ready knew  as  Frank,  then  came  forward  and  welcomed  and 
thanked  Criss,  saying  he  presumed  he  was  the  Carol  named  in 
the  telegram  he  had  received  from  mid-ocean,  and  placed  in  his 
hands  another  addressed  to  him,  which  proved  to  be  from 
Bertie. 

From  this  he  learnt  that  Nannie's  father  had,  with  the  rest 
of  the  passengers,  preferred  tq  continue  the  journey  to  South 
America,  the  Patagonian  government  having,  on  being  com- 
municated with  from  the  scene  of  the  wreck,  undertaken  to 
provide  for  them  on  their  arrival,  and  dispatched  a  swift  vessel 
to  convey  them  all  thither.  Bertie  added  that  after  landing 
his  own  party  of  the  rescued  on  the  American  coast,  he  should 
steer  homewards  to  keep  his  appointment  for  Christmas-eve 
with  Criss  and  his  fellow-trustees. 

The  message  from  the  old  Scotchman  to  his  married  daugh- 
ter, was  to  the  effect  that  he  had  lost  nearly  everything,  except 
his  life ;  and  that  as  he  was  too  proud  to  come  back  to  be  a 
burden  to  his  children,  he  should  accept  the  offers  of  the  Pata- 
gonian government,  and  do  the  best  he  could  for  himself  in 
South  America.  If  Xannie  ever  reached  them — of  which  he 
had  great  doubts,  notwithstanding  the  high  character  Mr. 
Greathead  gave  him  of  the  young  man  Carol,  for  steadiness  and 
skill — he  hoped  she  would  not  be  too  great  a  trouble  to  them. 
But  he  would  write  at  length  on  reaching  his  destination,  which 
he  hoped  to  do  without  further  mishap,  as  a  vessel  had  been 


BY  AND  BY.  139 

dispatcTied  to  their  aid,  and  he  was  not  one  rash  enough  to 
tempt  Providence  by  travelling  in  a  machine  so  contrary  to 
nature  as  an  air-ship. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 


The  European  settlements  in  Soudan,  of  which  that  on 
IMount  Atlantika  was  the  chief,  while  rich  and  flourishing  as 
communities,  were,  as  regards  their  civilization,  somewhat  in 
arrear  of  Europe  itself.  Many  fashions,  old  and  discarded  else- 
where as  the  excesses  of  unpractical  enthusiasts,  were  here  still 
in  full  vigor.  To  Criss  it  was  like  going  hack  to  the  times  he 
had  read  of  in  history,  to  find  women  claiming,  not  merely 
equality,  but  identity,  with  men,  in  all  the  affairs  of  life,  politi- 
cal as  well  as  social. 

Educated  in  the  self-same  schools,  and  on  the  self-same  sys- 
tem, as  the  boys,  and  taught  to  have  precisely  the  same  con- 
tempt for  all  pomps  and  vanities,  they  devoted  themselves  as 
equally  a  matter  of  course  to  grave  and  industrial  pursuits, 
working  in  the  farm,  the  factory,  and  the  office,  on  the  plough 
and  the  locomotive,  in  the  legislature  and  the  police  (for  the 
white  communities  of  Soudan  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  conduct- 
ing in  their  own  fashion  whatever  affairs  exclusively  affected 
themselves),  and  would  hold  a  rifle,  and  go  through  military 
drill,  and  had  no  manner  of  doubt  that,  if  called  on,  they  would 
exhibit  on  the  battle-field  a  prowess  little,  if  at  all,  inferior  to 
that  of  the  men. 

In  a  state  of  society  in  which  woman  cared  more  to  be  sensi- 
ble than  ornamental,  and  men  valued  them  for  their  uses  rather 
than  for  their  graces,  for  their  robustness  rather  than  their 
delicacy  and  tenderness,  and  mere  esteem  had  taken  the  place 
of  love,  and  the  general  aspect  of  life  was  grey  and  sober;  the 
sensation  had  been  one  akin  to  consternation,  which  Avas  created 
by  these  young  Scotch  girls,  who,  from  the  moment  of  their 


140  BY  AND  BY. 

arrival,  bade  resolute  defiance  to  all  established  rules  of  de- 
corum. 

At  first  the  elders  of  the  community  felt  strong  in  the  con- 
viction that  they  had  educated  the  youth  of  both  sexes  far  too 
well  for  them  to  suffer  from  so  evil  an  example.  But  when  they 
saw  the  eft'ect  produced  by  the  wondrous  beauty  of  face  and 
form  of  the  new  arrivals,  their  witching  ways  of  scorn  or  merri- 
ment :  their  reckless  abandon  of  manner  and  speech  :  their  utter 
contempt  for  the  useful,  and  instinctive  devotion  to  the  charm- 
ing, as  the  one  thing  needful  or  desirable  in  their  sex  ;  and  saw, 
too,  that  even  the  gravest  and  most  jjractical  of  their  sons  were 
unable  to  resist  the  fascination, — they  were  moved  to  indig- 
nation and  M'rath,  and  ceased  not  to  utter  warnings  against  all 
association  with  "the  witches  of  Atlantika." 

These  on  their  part  enjoyed  the  commotion  they  were  only 
too  conscious  of  having  created.  They  knew  that  none  could 
say  any  harm  of  them,  save  that  they  were  pretty  girls,  and 
scorned  to  be  anything  else.  Too  heedless  and  untaught,  save 
in  the  young  ways  of  their  own  inbred  nature,  the3»scarce  knew 
the  source  of  their  power,  but  felt  that,  somehow,  in  them  a 
tribute  was  being  paid  to  Womanhood  it  failed  to  obtain  else- 
where around  them  ;  and  it  was  nothing  to  them  if  it  were  paid 
at  the  expense  of  "civilization."  And  the  whoTe  career  of  these 
girls  certainly  was  a  veritable  triumph  of  womanhood, — woman- 
hood in  its  simple  freshness  and  genuineness :  pure  from  the 
hands  of  nature ;  wild  and  untamable  in  its  utter  unconscious- 
ness of  ill ;  haughty  and  proud  in  its  conscious  superiority  to  all 
arts ;  and  winning  and  joj'ous  in  its  wish  to  please,  and  its 
confidence  of  inability  to  fail  to  do  so,  even  when  making  most 
strenuous  efforts  to  be  disagreeable. 

The  fa'ther  was  utterly  powerless  to  comprehend  or  restrain 
the  exuberant  natures  of  his  daughters.  As  children,  there  was 
no  garden,  wood,  or  meadow,  where  they  would  not  wilfully 
trespass  and  stray.  As  maidens,  there  was  no  heart  they  would 
not  win,  and  make  riierry  with.  As  women, — ah,  the  thought 
of  what  they  would  be  as  women,  sometimes  made  him  hate  the 
very  beauty  that  served  to  remind  him  of  the  mother  his  own 
hardness  had  done  to  death. 


BY  AND  BY.  141 

At  length  some  one  was  found  bold  enough,  to  seriously  wish 
to  marry  the  elder  of  the  sisters ;  a  man  of  good  repute  for  sense 
and  substance,  the  owner  of  an  extensive  elephant-nursery,  and 
valuable  ivory-works ;  honest,  straightforward,  good-looking, 
and  highly  regarded,  even  by  the  father  himself.  It  was  even 
more  astonishing  to  the  latter  to  find  his  daughter  readily  ac- 
cepting the  offer,  at  so  low  a  rate  had  he  estimated  her  good 
sense.  But  his  surprise  was  as  nothing  compared  to  that  of  the 
whole  community  when  Mattie  insisted  on  being  married  out 
and  out,  at  once,  without  any  provision  for  a  trial  of  compati- 
bilities, and  without  any  of  the  usual  settlements  of  property  on 
herself  separately.  When  remonstrated  with,  and  told  that 
such  confiding  generosity  was  a  culpable  weakness,  and  a  wanton 
throwing  of  temptation  in  a  man's  way,  she  said  that  she  was 
a  woman,  and  had  a  right  to  be  weak  if  she  liked ;  that  the 
other  women  of  the  place  might  turn  themselves  into  men  if 
they  chose ;  but  that  she  believed  any  true  woman  knew  a  true 
man  when  she  saw  one,  and  that  if  she  could  not  trust  a  man 
altogether,  she  would  not  trust  him  at  all ;  and  she  did  trust 
Frank  Hazeltine. 

Her  lover  would  not  be  outdone  in  generositj^,  and  accepted 
her  "with  the  same  absence  of  all  the  usual  safeguards  and  pre- 
cautious. And  so  they  became  man  and  wife  in  the  simple 
fiishion  of  old  times,  when  there  were  no  marriage-settlements, 
no  separation  clauses,  no  woman's  rights.  In  short,  they  took 
each  other  for  better  or  for  worse,  and  agreed  to  swim  or  sink 
together.  And  the  only  member  of  her  own  sex  in  the  wide 
country  round  that  approved  of  their  conduct,  was  the  rebel- 
lious and  defiant  Nannie. 

It  was  with  a  grim  satisfaction  that  the  old  Scotchman  saw 
his  daughter  taken  off  his  hands.  He  liked  Hazeltine,  but  lie 
was  too  confident  of  Mattie's  powers  to  plague,  to  consider  him 
a  subject  for  envy.  He  soon  learnt  to  hope  that  she  would 
plague  him,  for  he  conceived  a  profound  distrust  of  Hazeltine 
so  soon  as  he  realized  the  fact  that  his  wife  loved  him.  The 
father  felt  himself  supplanted  in  his  daughter's  affections ! 
His  jealousy  blazed  out  afresh  when  he  found  that  Nannie  pre- 


142  BY  AND  BY. 

ferred  her  sister's  home  to  her  own.  Altogether,  he  was  so  ill 
at  ease  that  he  determined  to  leave  the  country.  It  was  not 
through  any  wish  for  Dannie's  company  that  he  took  her  with 
him.  Indeed,  he  probably  would  have  left  her  with  the  Hazel- 
tines,  but  the  eagerness  with  which  both  they  and  Nannie 
welcomed  the  arrangement,  decided  the  old  man  against  it. 

All  that  Criss  saw  during  his  brief  sojourn  at  the  Farm,  was 
an  exquisitely  lovely  woman  retaining  in  maternity  all  the 
charms  of  girlhood;  and  an  exquisitely  lovely  girl,  not  yet 
matron,  and  apparently  as  fancy-free  as  any  young  spring-bok 
of  the  country  ;  and  so  given  to  inconsistent  extremes  of  con- 
duct, so  incalculable  in  her  moods,  that  she'  would  hardly 
bestow  upon  him  a  kind  look  or  civil  speech,  until  he  went 
to  take  leave  of  her,  and  then  she  burst  into  a  flood  of  passion- 
ate tears. 

Criss  was  moving  away  distressed  and  perplexed  at  a  pheno- 
menon so  strange  and  unexpected.  But  Nannie  darted  at  him, 
and  declared  vehemently  that  if  he  said  a  word  to  her  sister  or 
anyone  else  about  her  crj'ing,  she  would  kill  him  first  and  then 
herself ;  and  that  she  believed  she  only  cried  because  she  had 
been  so  preternaturally  good  all  the  time  she  had  been  in  the 
Ariel  with  him,  and  ever  since,  that  she  must  make  up  for  it 
somehow. 


CHAPTER  V. 

In  the  anticipation  of  his  coming  birthday,  Criss  had  matter 
enough  for  thought,  while  pursuing  his  journey  homeward,  for 
he  knew  that  he  was  then  to  be  put  in  possession  of  his  history 
and  parentage  so  far  as  they  were  known,  and  be  called  upon  to 
determine  his  career.  But  his  mind  refused  to  dwell  upon 
aught  save  the  face  which  he  recognized  as  at  once  the 
face    of     the    bride-angel    and    of     the     fair    child    he    had 


BY  AND  BY.  143 

rescued  from  the  wreck,  and  left  crying  passionately  at  his 
departure.  No  matter  whether  he  flew  high  or  low  ;  whether 
he  swooped  toward  earth,  so  near  as  to  catch  the  voices  of  his 
fellow  men ;  or  soared  toward  heaven,  where  he  was  wont  to 
hold  sweet  intercourse  with  his  spiritual  kinsfolk,  nothing 
seemed  to  him  to  be  the  same  as  it  had  been  before.  He  felt 
as  an  invalid,  into  whose  darkened  chamber  a  single  errant  sun- 
beam has  forced  its  way,  not  to  cheer,  but  to  distract. 

Soon  the  waters  of  Lake  Tchad  opened  their  wide  expanse 
to  his  view.  The  sight  recalled  him  to  the  fears  he  had  heard 
uttered  respecting  the  disturbed  political  state  of  the  country. 
He  had  an  idea  of  descending  to  the  capital  to  obtain  in- 
formation, for  his  new  friends,  the  settlers  in  Atlantika,  were 
very  uneasy  on  the  subject.  They  considered  themselves  in 
danger. 

On  approaching  the  city,  he  perceived  a  commotion.  People 
and  troops  were  in  rapid  movement.  Smoke  and  flames  were 
rising  from  some  of  the  principal  buildings.  In  place  of 
descending  at  once,  he  decided  to  approach  only  near  enough 
to  obtain  information  of  what  was  going  on.  On  perceiving 
him  the  multitude  sent  up  a  great  cry.  He  paused  a  few  score 
feet  over  their  heads,  and  let  down  a  cord  with  a  label  appended, 
bearing  the  words,  ''Any  mails  for  Europe?"  as  was  the 
custom  with  air-couriers. 

A  message  was  sent  up,  saying  that  no  rrtails  were  ready ; 
that  there  was  a  revolution  in  Soudan ;  that  the  Emperor  had 
disappeared,  and  that  a  large  sum  was  offered  for  his  capture. 
It  was  his  palace  that  was  in  flames.  But  the  accompanying 
newspapers  would  tell  all  the  news,  the  principal  item  of  which 
was  the  establishment  of  a  republic.  Ko  further  disturbance 
was  expected,  unless  the  Emperor  should  return  with  a  force. 
The  republic  meant  peace,  economy,  and  fraternity. 

Criss  continued  his  journey  re-assured.  Soon  the  vast  and 
fertile  alluvial  tracts  began  to  give  place  to  patches  of  sand; 
tlie  growing  temperature  of  the  blasts  of  hot  air  which  now 
continually  assailed  him,  told  him  that  he  was  approaching 
a   region   which    not    even   modern  skill   and   enterprise   had 


144  BY  AND  BY. 

attempted  to  redeem  from  its  ancient  reproach  of  being  the 
most  arid  and  baneful  region  in  the  world — the  vast  and 
dreaded  Sahara,  dreariest  portion  of  the  dreary  waste  that 
stretches  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  It  opened 
upon  liim  now,  the  sandy  ocean  of  the  illimitable  desert,  whose 
ceaseless  and  burning  billoAvs  none  could  traverse,  save  at  the 
risk  of  being  overwhelmed  and  scorched  to  death.  A  curse  to 
itself,  and  a  curse  to  two  continents,  whose  climate  it  marred, 
pitilessly  mocking  man's  longing  for  more  of  the  fair  earth  on 
which  to  rear  homes  for  his  children,  the  Sahara  bade  defiance 
alike  to  the  plough,  the  railway,  and  the  canal,  and  seemed  even 
to  resent  the  passage  above  it  of  the  swift-winged  aeromotive 
of  our  times ;  for  it  whirled  far  aloft  columns  of  fine  sand, 
which  blinded  the  aeronaut  and  clogged  the  delicate  works  of 
his  machinery.  "  Why,"  thought  Criss,  as  he  began  to  recog- 
nize the  influences  of  this  mysterious  region,  "  why  did  not  the 
subterranean  forces  of  the  earth  heave  it  a  few  hundred  feet 
higher,  and  give  man  another  continent  for  his  use,  or  leave  it 
a  few  hundred  feet  lower,  and  give  him  another  sea  ?  Is  it  as 
a  perpetual  challenge  to  man,  to  prove  his  impotence  or  his 
puissance,  that  nature  has  bequeathed  him  such  a  legacy  ? 

Criss  has  got  far  within  the  limits  of  the  dreaded  desert,  when 
morning  breaks.  The  night  has  been  perfectly  calm,  and  the 
air  is  clear  and  free  from  dust.  Fascinated  and  attracted  by 
the  place  and  its  reputation,  he  flies  low  and  leisurely  along. 
A  sea  of  sand !  Surely  it  must  be  the  watery  ocean  itself  that 
rolls  beneath  him,  boiling  and  bubbling  in  vast  blue  billows,  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  reach.  He  descends  towards  it  to  examine 
the  phenomenon  more  closely.  The  air  becomes  hotter  as  he 
does  so,  but  there  is  not  a  breath  of  wind  to  account  for  the 
motion  of  the  billows,  which  he  sees  rolling  over  and  over  each 
other  as  if  propelled  iipwards  from  beneath.  Tlie  red  sun  rises, 
and  straitway  the  tossing  ocean  beneath  him  mingles  crimson 
and  gold  with  its  blue,  as  he  has  never  known  the  ocean  of 
Avaters  to  do,  nor  even  the  clouds  of  the  air  over  which  he  has 
been  wont  to  ride.  He  arrests  his  downward  course,  •  but  the 
many-colored   billows  seem   to  rise  towards  him.     Already  he 


BY   AND  BY.  145 

descries  their  gleams  and  sprays  shooting  past  him.  Now  the 
billows  themselves  are  around  and  above  him.  He  is  engulphed, 
and  yet  he  breathes  freely.  Ah  !  It  is  a  mirage  of  the  desert 
that  welcomes  him  to  the  heart  of  the  Sahara. 

It  is  impossible  to  judge  how  far  he  is  from  the  ground.  He 
does  not  suppose  that  the  phenomenon  extends  to  any  great 
height,  and  having  ascertained  its  nature,  he  prepares  to  re- 
ascend.  But  a  sound  catches  his  ears,  a  sound  of  tearing  and 
rending,  followed  by  harsh  cries  of  terror,  pain,  and  despair. 
Listening  intently,  he  ascertains  that  the  place  from  whence 
the  sounds  proceed  is  not  stationary,  for  sometimes  it  is  nearer 
to  him  than  at  others;  biit  in  no  case  many  rods  from  him. 
While  thus  listening,  and  scarcely  heeding  his  machine,  he 
feels  beneath  him  the  touch  as  of  soft  yielding  ground.  The 
Ariel  stops  erect,  and  Criss,  standing  up  in  his  car,  calls  aloud, 
in  English, — 

"  Does  anyone  want  help  ?  " 

He  pauses  and  listens,  but  there  is  no  reply.  Again  he 
cries,  this  time,  remembering  where  he  is,  in  Arabic, — 

"  If  anyone  wants  help,  let  him  speak." 

An  answer  came,  rapidly  and  eagerly ;  and  apparently  from 
one  so  close  to  him  as  to  make  him  look  quickly  round.  But 
nothing  was  visible  through  the  mist  of  the  mirage.  The 
repl}'^  was  in  the  pure  Arabic  spoken  by  the  better  classes  in 
Soudan.     Criss  readily  interpreted  it. 

"  Say  first  who  offers  help.     Of  what  nation  ?  " 

"English,"  replied  Criss. 

"  English  for  certain,  and  no  Bornouse  ?  " 

"  An  English  and  a  true  man,  for  certain,"  replied  Criss  ; 
"  a  traveller  on  the  way  back  to  London  from  South  Africa." 

"  You  speak  my  language  almost  too  well  for  me  to  trust 
you,"  was  the  response.     "  Say,  how  are  you  travelling  ?  " 

"  Alone,  and  in  my  own  car — an  electro-magnetic  flying 
machine.     But  what  and  wherefore  do  you  fear  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  fear.  You  cannot  be  Bornouse,  for  they  know  not 
the  use  of  such  machines.  I  am  a  fugitive  from  the  insurrec- 
10 


146  BY  AND  BY. 

tion,    and    am    injured;    and    there    may  be   pursuers    on   my 
track." 

There  was  plenty  of  light,  and  the  speakers  were  close 
togethei",  but  they  were  still  invisible  to  each  other.  Their 
voices  sounded  strange  and  hollow,  through  the  dense  and  laden 
air.  Criss  learnt  that  the  sufferer  had  fallen  while  endeavoring 
to  cross  the  Sahara  in  an  old-fashioned  aiiromotive,  in  the  use 
of  which  he  had  but  little  skill.  He  had  been  badly  wounded 
before,  and  now  was  still  more  crippled  by  his  fall,  and  by  th& 
struggles  of  the  machinery  while  expending  its  power. 

Finding  him  still  reluctant,  and  knowing  the  danger  a 
desert-storm  would  have  for  his  apparatus,  Criss  said, 

"  You  must  decide  at  once.  Either  allow  me  to  serve  you,  or 
say  farewell." 

"  I  shall  perish  miserablj^  if  left  here,"  was  the  answer,  in  a 
someAvhat  pettish  tone. 

"  Can  worse  befal  you  through  me,  whoever  I  may  be  ? " 
asked  Criss. 

''  I  will  trust  you,"  answered  the  voice ;  "  but  how  are  3'^ou  to 
find  me  ?  " 

"Leave  that  to  me,"  said  Criss ;  "but  do  not  stir  from  where 
you  are." 

"  Alas !  I  cannot  move  any  more ;  for  my  machine  is  ex- 
hausted, and  I  too  am  fainting." 

Had  there  been  any  holding  ground,  Criss  would  have  secured 
the  Ariel  against  the  chances  of  any  wind  that  might  arise,  and 
stopped  out,  holding  a  string. to  serve  as  clue  by  which  to  find 
it  again.  This  being  out  of  the  question,  he  leaned  over  and 
drove  a  stake  as  far  as  he  could  into  the  yielding  sand,  fastened 
to  it  one  end  of  a  long  cord,  and  then  made  the  Ariel  move 
slowly  to  the  other  end  of  it.  During  this  process,  the  two 
men  spoke  at  intervals,  in  order  to  ascertain  their  distance  and 
direction  from  each  other. 

"  You  are  going  quite  away  from  me,"  said  the  stranger,  in 
a  feeble  and  querulous  tone,  as  Criss  reached  the  end  of  his 
line. 

"  I  shall   soon  be  nearer,"   said  Criss,  delighted  to  find  that 


BY  AND  BY.  147 

the  length  of  his  cord  was  sufficient  to  make  so  easily  apprecia- 
ble a  difference  in  their  distance.  "I  have  got  my  centre  and 
my  distance  now,  and  am  about  to  describe  a  circle  with  them. 
Keep  quiet,  and  directly  the  string  catches  you,  let  me   know." 

A  few  moments  more,  and  the  manoeuvre  was  successful. 
The  line  caught  against  the  crippled  aeromotive,  and  Criss 
drawing  it  in,  came  close  up  to  it.  The  two  men  could  now 
see  each  other  distinctl3^  The  stranger  was  a  fine-looking  man, 
apparently  of  mixed  race,  between  fifty  and  sixty  years  of  age, 
and  richly  dressed. 

"  You  do  not  look  English,"  he  remarked,  after  a  keen  scru- 
tiny of  Criss's  face. 

"I  believe  it  is  only  in  blood  that  I  am  not  English,"  said 
Criss  ;  "but  now  let  me  examine  your  wounds  ?  " 

"  Not  now,  not  now.  I  want  to  get  further  from  danger. 
Can  you  carry  me  to  a  place  of  safety  ?  " 

"  I  can  carry  you,  but  not  your  baggage,"  said  Criss  ;  "  but  I 
assure  you  that  you  are  too  far  out  in  the  desert  to  be  discovered. 
None  could  see  us  if  they  tried.  My  lighting  upon  you  is  so 
extraordinary  a  coincidence  that  it  is  not  likely  to  be  repeated. 
It  is  true,  we  might  telegraph  to  them,  but  none  can  telegraph 
to  us,  for  none  know  where  we  are." 

And  he  insisted  upon  examining  his  wounds. 

The  stranger,  who  was  evidently  a  man  of  distinction,  and 
accustomed  to  exercise  authority,  could  not  repress  an  expres- 
sion of  amused  surprise  at  the  kindly  imperious  way  in  which 
this  youth  took  command  of  him,  and  directed  his  movements. 

"One  leg  broken,'^  said  Criss,  "and  one  arm  ;  a  bad  wound 
in  the  head,  and  several  bruises  on  the  body." 

"Those  are  all  from  the  fall,"  said  the  stranger.  "Flying- 
machines  are  prohibited  in  Soudan.  The  people  are  too  bar- 
barous to  be  trusted  with  them.  I  alone  possessed  one,  an  old 
one,  which  I  kept  secretly  against  emergencies,  but  I  have  little 
skill  in  using  it.  Yet  T  tliink  I  should  have  got  safely  in  it  to 
the  fortress  of  Asben,  where  I  have  friends,  but  for  the  wounds 
received  in  the  insurrection,  which  prevented  me  from  manag- 
ing it  aright.  But  look  at  my  left  side,  just  below  the  ribs — 
I  feel  a  hurt  there." 


148  BY  AND  BY. 

"  A  small  bullet  wound,"  said  Criss,  examining  the  part  indi- 
cated; "  but  it  lias  ceased  to  bleed.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
find  Asben,  or  any  other  place  in  the  desert,  in  this  mist.  Even 
were  I  to  ascend  to  the  clear  sky  and  take  an  observation,  I 
should  ijievitablylose  the  position  on  coming  down  again.  Be- 
sides, in  such  times  the  loyalty  even  of  j'-our  friends  in  Asben 
may  be  dubious.  I  propose,  therefore,  that  you  let  me  take  you 
to  Algiers.  I  have  friends  there,  of  whom  one  is  a  first-rate 
doctor.  When  you  are  well,  I  will  take  you  to  any  place  you- 
choose." 

The  stranger  assented  ;  but  on  endeavoring  to  move  into  the 
Ariel,  he  nearlj'^  fainted  with  pain  and  weakness.  Criss  then 
administered  a  cordial.  It  was  only  with  considerable  difficulty 
that  the  change  was  at  length  effected. 

"Is  there  anything  here  of  small  bulk  that  you  wish  to 
take?"  asked  Criss,  pointing  to  the  baggage. 

"They  contain  little  beside  wine  and  provisions.  I  have 
enough  about  me  to  pay  any  moderate  expenses  for  some  little 
time  to  come." 

And  he  looked  wistfully  at  Criss,  as  if  to  divine  his  disposi- 
tion respecting  the  laws  of  property. 

"  There,  one  or  two  of  those  little  boxes  may  as  well  come 
with  us,"  he  said,  carelessly  indicating  the  packages  in  ques- 
tion. "  They  will  not  materially  add  to  your  burden,  and  it 
would  be  a  pity  to  leave  all  my  little  knick-nacks  to  be  buried 
in  the  sand." 

They  were  ready  to  start,  and  Criss  looked  around  him.  So 
intent  had  they  both  been  upon  personal  matters,  that  they  had 
not  observed  the  change  that  had  taken  place.  Criss  was  start- 
led at  beholding  the  new  aspect  which  nature  had  assumed  in 
the  last  few  minutes. 

The  mirage  had  entirely  vanished,  and  from  the  somewhat 
elevated  position  on  which  the  Ariel  was  resting, — the  summit 
of  a  huge  sand}'  roller, — happily  for  the  present  at  rest  until 
the  wind  should  give  it  a  fresh  impetus  on  its  ever  westward 
course  towards  the  Atlantic, — the  vast  desert  lay  spread  around 


BY  AND  BY.  149 

them,  an  illimitaWe  ocean  of  sand.  The  spectacle  struck  viv- 
idly upon  Criss's  unfamiliar  eyes.  There  was  a  beauty  in  it 
which  he  had  not  suspected,  but  of  a  kind  to  make  him  shud- 
der at  its  absolute  desolateuess. 

"  Surely,  surely,'"  he  murmured  as  he  gazed,  "  this  is  not 
what  was  meant  by  the  promise  that  there  should  be  no  more 
sea  !     Fancy  the  whole  earth  thus  !" 

"Praying?  and  with  your  back  to  the  East?  "asked  the 
stranger,  who  had  not  caught  Criss's  words. 

When  they  were  aloft  and  on  their  course,  Criss  told  him  his 
thought. 

"  You  know  and  can  quote  our  Bible,  and  yet  say  you  are 
English  ?  Why,  I  have  always  understood  that  the  English 
were  a  nation  of  infidels,  who  had  banished  the  Bible  from 
their  land." 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  Criss,  "we  consider  no  education 
complete  that  does  not  include  a  knowledge  of  it.  Though  it 
is  true  we  do  not  regard  it  as  a  Fetich,  to  be  adored  but  not 
comprehended.     That  we  should  call  superstition." 

"Superstition?  Ah,  yes,  you  English,  I  know,  look  upon 
my  people  as  superstitious.     We  regard  you  as  irreligious." 

"Besides,"  added  Criss,  "I  believe  I  have  both  Hebrew  and 
Greek  blood  in  me.  So  that  I  have  a  manifold  right  to  know 
something  of  the  literature  of  those  languages." 

"  I  knew  there  was  something  Eastern  in  you  the  moment  I 
saw  you,"  exclaimed  the  wounded  man.  "  And  I  felt  there 
was  a  link  between  us.  I,  too,  have  Hebrew  blood  in  me.  I 
am  descended  from — "  And  here  he  stopped,  and  appeared  to 
be  faint  from  pain  and  exhaustion. 

"  You  came  across  Bornou,"  he  asked,  suddenly.  "Did.  you 
hear  what  was  going  on  at  the  capital  ?  " 

Criss  told  him  that  he  only  paused  for  a  moment,  to  offer  to 
take  mails,  and  that  they  told  him  the  Emperor  had  disappear- 
ed.    The  palace,  too,  was  in  flames." 

"Oh,  those  cursed  traitors,"  muttered  the  fugitive;  "but  I 
shall  be  avenged.  In  vain  will  they  seek  for  that  which  they 
desire." 


150  BY  AND  Br. 

And  his  faintness  came  over  him  again. 

After  another  dose  of  the  cordial,  he  said, 

"I  am  weaker  even  than  I  thought.  When  can  we  reach  a 
city  ?     And  are  you  sure  Algiers  is  the  best  place  for  me." 

Criss  told  him  that  a  few  hours  more  would  bring  them 
there,  and  that  it  had  been  famous  as  a  sanitarium  ever  since 
the  old  French  occupation.  He  proposed,  too,  to  place  him  in 
the  hands  of  a  doctor  of  whose  skill  he  was  well  aware,  and 
under  the  protection  of  the  British  Minister,  who  was  a  great 
personal  friend  of  his  own.  Criss  added  also  that  he  himself 
would  have  to  proceed  almost  at  once  to  England,  when  he  had 
seen  him  properl}'^  cared  for. 

"  You  will  leave  me  !  "  exclaimed  the  stranger.  "  Will  anj^- 
thing  induce  you  to  remain  ?     I  can  reward  j'ou — indeed  !  " 

"  It  is  impossible,"  said  Criss ;  "  but  if  necessary,  I  can 
return,  and  that  soon." 

"  I  dread  the  intrigues  of  my  enemies,  if  they  learn  where  I 
am.  I  have  never  been  friendly  with  the  Mediterranean 
States." 

"  Our  minister  is  all  powerful.  Besides,  he  will  do  anything 
for  me." 

"  You  speak  as  if  you  were  somebody,  and  had  influence,  and 
were  not  a  mere  courier." 

"  Every  Englishman  is  Somebody,  whether  he  be  courier  or 
not,"  replied  Criss ;  "  but  I  am  not  a  courier."  And  he  gave 
the  stranger  an  outline  of  his  history. 

"  What  is  your  age  ?  " 

Criss  told  him  he  was  going  home  to  complete  his  majority. 

"  And  3'our  name  ?  " 

Criss  told  him. 

"  Can  there  be  another  of  that  name  ?  " 

"  Certainly  not,"  Criss  said,  and  told  him  generally  how  he 
came  to  be  so  called. 

He  sank  back,  murmuring, 

"  Christmas  Carol !  twenty-one  years  !  Christmas  Carol ! 
Wonderful  are  the  ways  of  the  Almighty ! " 

******* 


BY  AND  BY.  151 

A  little  longer,  and  Criss,  enlisting  the  sympathies  of  his 
friends,  the  Minister  and  the  doctor,  had  fulfilled  all  his 
promises  to  his  unfortunate  passenger.  He  then  went  to  take 
his  leave.  The  fugitive  made  no  further  effort  to  detain  him, 
hut  implored  a  promise  that  he  would  return  to  him  if  possible ; 
and  added — 

"  I  know  not  whether  I  shall  recover.'  My  impression  is  that 
I  shall  not.  If  I  do  not,  I  adjure  you  to  observe  as  a  last 
injunction  of  the  sacred  dead,  what  I  am  about  to  say  to  you. 
You  see  this  small  packet.  Kone  but  you  must  know  of  its 
contents.  I  will  place  your  name  upon  it.  If  the  rebellion  in 
Soudan  fails,  present  it  to  the  Emperor.  It  will  win  for  you 
whatever  consideration  is  within  his  power  to  show.  Yet  it  is 
not  for  reward,  but  as  the  sacredest  duty,  that  you  will  do  this. 
Should  the  rebellion  succeed,  and  the  Empire  not  be  restored, 
the  contents  are But  I  will  leave  directions  in  writing." 

Criss  said  he  would  fulfil  the  injunction  to  the  letter ;  and 
the  stranger  declared  himself  content.  There  was  that  about 
the  youth  which  inspired  a  confidence  which  no  protestations 
could  have  produced.  When  he  started  for  London  the  packet 
was  already  entrusted  to  the  British  Minister.  The  account 
given  him  of  the  patient  by  the  doctor,  determined  him  to  lose 
no  time  in  returning  acrain  to  Algiers. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  time  was  Christmas-eve ;  the  place.  Lord  Avenil's  pri- 
vate rooms  in  the  Triangle.  The  following  morning  would  see 
Criss  of  age,  and  in  possession  of  his  foi'tune.  Avenil  and 
Bertie  differed  as  to  the  feelings  with  which  their  ward  would 
receive  the  intelligence  about  to  be  broken  to  him.  The  event 
proved  that  they  were  both  right,  and  both  wrong.  The  old 
lawyer  who  had  from  the  first  been  entrusted  with  the  legal 
part  of  the  business,  was  present ;  as  also,  of  course,  was  Criss, 
but  two  days  arrived  from  Algiers. 


152  liY  ANT)  BY. 

During  dinner,  Criss  recounted  his  recent  adventures,  making 
the  wreck  and  the  rescue  of  Nannie,  and  the  subsequent  flight 
over  the  length  of  Africa  the  most  prominent  points. 

After  dinner  they  proceeded  to  business.  The  lawyer  first 
read  aloud  a  brief  narrative  of  the  finding  of  Criss  in  the  bal- 
loon on  the  iceberg.  He  knew  something  of  this  before,  but 
the  reference  to  his  probable  parents  and  descent,  possessed 
for  him  an  interest  that  was  ever  fresh  and  vivid.  He  was 
much  touched  on  learning  that  the  proceeds  of  the  valuables 
found  in  the  balloon  had  been  regarded  as  belonging  to  himself, 
the  only  surviving  occupant,  and  so  scrupulousl}^  husl)anded  for 
his  benefit,  that  the  finder,  Bertie,  had  continued  to  work  hard 
for  his  own  living,  accepting  nothing  out  of  Criss's  fortune  be- 
yond what  had  actually  been  expended  on  him. 

The  particulars  of  the  fortune  itself  formed  the  last  item. 
One  deduction,  the  lawyer  remarked,  might  appear  large,  and 
doubtless  it  was  so.  This  was  for  the  item  of  taxation.  But 
it  was  not  large  when  they  considered  the  advantage  given  in 
return  for  it,  in  the  shape  of  perfect  protection.  The  fiscal 
system  of  the  country  being  based,  as  it  had  long  been,  exclu- 
sively upon  realized  property,  in  order  to  remove,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, all  burdens  from  industry  and  earnings,  fortunes  such  as 
that  before  them,  bore  the  chief  brunt  of  taxation.  If  their 
yoimg  friend  had  included  among  his  studies  the  history  of 
British  Economics,  he  must  know  that  nothing  had  tended  so 
much  towards  the  security  of  property,  as  the  introduction  of 
such  a  measure.  For  it  reconciled  the  industrial  classes,  which 
form  the  great  bulk  of  the  community,  to  the  accumulation  by 
individuals  of  the  gigantic  fortunes  for  which  modern  times 
were  distinguished.  In  the  foremost  ranks  of  su(;h  fortunate 
indi^'iduals  he  had  the  great  pleasure  of  reckoning  their  ward 
and  friend,  Mr.  Christmas  Carol.  "And  for  fear,"  he  concluded, 
"  you  should  think  I  have  made  a  mistake,  and  said  thousands 
when  I  ought  to  ha^e  said  hundreds,  and  millions  when  I  ought 
to  have  said  thousands ;  here  are  the  figures  for  you  to  read 
yourself.  Here,  also,  in  this  casket,  are'  some  of  the  smaller 
jewels  which  belong  to  you,  for  it  was  not  thought  necessary  or 


BY    AND  BY.  153 

advisable  to  dispose  of  the  whole  of  them."  And  he  placed  the 
document  in  Criss's  hands. 

Even  Bertie  was  startled  at  the  total,  for  though  aware  of 
the  original  amount,  he  had  not  thought  of  the  enormous  addi- 
tion which  would  be  made  by  allowing  it  to  accumulate  at  com- 
pound interest  for  nearly  twenty-one  years. 

Criss  took  the  document  mechanically,  but  did  not  look  at  it. 

His  eyes  were  bent  i;pon  the  ground,  as  if  he  were  endeavor- 
ing by  a  process  of  intense  cogitation  to  grasp  the  whole  sub- 
ject.    At  length  he  looked  up,  and  said  : 

"  T  am  very  glad  indeed  to  be  so  rich,  and  most  grateful  to 
you  to  whom  I  owe  it  all.  Indeed,  I  look  upon  it  as  a  debt, 
and  not  as  a  possession.  It  is  yours  far  more  than  mine,  and  I 
hold  it  as  a  free  gift,  to  be  resumed  at  your  pleasure,  and  spent 
as  yoii  approve.  But  I  want  to  be  your  debtor  for  one  kind- 
ness more.  I  want  no  one  else  to  know  of  it.  I  feel  that  it  is 
only  by  keeping  it  a  profound  secret  that  T  can  use  this  wealth 
as  it  can  best  be  used.  Let  me  pass  throi;gh  the  world  known 
simply  as  Criss  Carol,  with  a  tolerable  independence,  otherwise 
I  feel  that  both  my  power  and  my  satisfaction  will  be  seriously 
imperilled." 

The  old  lawyer  was  the  first  to  speak.  After  looking  towards 
Avenil  and  Bertie,  and  seeing  that  neither  of  them  were  ready, 
he  said,  with  that  bland  smile  which  appears  to  have  been  an 
appanage  of  lawyers  ever  since,  according  to  the  old  legend,  the 
first  one  put  his  foot  into  Eden  : 

"  I  suspect  that  the  difficulty  of  keeping  your  secret  will  not 
be  on  our  part  so  much  as  on  your  own,  my  dear  young  sir, 
•My  own  impression  is  that  a  young  man  might  as  well  expect 
to  walk  about  with  Mount  Vesuvius  under  his  arm  in  a  state  of 
eruption,  and  expect  people  not  to  notice  it,  as  to  keep  all  this 
gold  hidden  from  view." 

"At  any  rate,"  remarked  Bertie,  "we  will  do  our  best  to 
hold  our  tongues,  until  yoii  release  us  ;  eh,  Avenil  ?" 

"  Of  course,  if  Criss  soberly  and  seriously  insists  upon  se- 
crecy," replied  Avenil.  "  But  I  suspect  his  is  only  the  natural 
reluctance  everyone  has  to  being  made  the  subject  of  scrutiny 


154  BY  AND  BY. 

and  obsen-ation  wliile  in  a  position  in  wliicli  lie  does  not  ypt 
fool  liiniself  at  liome.  A  little  later  I  think  and  hope  he  will 
learn  that  the  mere  fact  of  a  man  being  known  to  be  in  the 
possession  of  a  great  faculty  or  power  for  good,  and  therefore 
that  great  things  are  expected  from  him,  is  calculated  to  oper- 
ate admirably  as  a  stimulus.  Now  I,  my  dear  boy,  have  ven- 
tured already  to  cherish  plans  for  you.  Your  fortune  consti- 
tutes an  engine  of  enormous  power,  socially  and  politically,  if 
you  choose  so  to  apply  it.  And  that  power  is  as  vastly  in- 
creased by  its  existence  being  generally  known,  as  the  power 
of  capital  is  increased  by  credit.  For  credit  is  capital  plus 
character.  The  A^ery  reputation  of  being  a  young  millionaire, 
with  good  education,  extensive  knowledge  of  the  world  (at 
least  of  the  outside  of  it),  and  aspirations  towards  a  career  of 
usefulness,  would,  if  applied  in  channels  of  which  I  am  cogni- 
zant, at  once  secure  your  election  to  the  lower  chamber  of  the 
legislature,  with  the  highest  place  in  the  land  within  your 
reach." 

"All  this  may  come  in  time,"  said  Criss,  unable  to  avoid 
smiling  at  his  guardian's  inventory  of  his  advantages.  "  But  I 
think  you  will  allow"  that  I  am  yet  full  young  to  turn  legis- 
lator." 

"  Not  a  bit  too  young  to  begin  to  learn  that  or  any  other 
business,  if  you  mean  to  excel  in  it,"  interposed  the  lawyer. 

"But  do  you  not  consider,"  continued  Criss,  "that  the  cir- 
cumstances of  my  origin  impose  some  obligation  upon  me  ?  " 
"  Of  what  kind  ?  "  asked  Avenil. 

"  I  may  have  a  father  living,  and  in  need  of  me.  These 
mysterious  jewels,  too,  do  they  impose  no  responsibility?  It 
seems  to  me  as  not  impossible  that  a  sacred  duty  may  reveal 
itself  in  connection  with  them.  Your  kind  care  has  made  it 
possible  for  me  to  redeem  them  and  still  be  very  rich.  If  I- ana 
really  of  the  Holy  Stock,  and  lawful  inheritor  of  royal  heir- 
looms, it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  duties  arising  which  cannot 
at  present  be  foreseen." 

This  speech  made  Avenil  and  Bertie  involuntarily  look  at 
each  other,  for  it  recalled  my  grandmother's  remarks  at  the 
consultation  of  many  years  before. 


BY  AND  BY.  155 

Avenil  was  the  first  to  answer  him. 

"My  dear  boy,"  he  said,  "  I  can  quite  understand  and  sympa- 
thize with. your  feelings  under  the  circumstances.  The  sudden 
accession  to  an  enormous  power  such  as  has  come  into  your 
hands,  is  sure  to  suggest,  to  a  man  of  conscience,  the  incurrence 
of  corresponding  responsibilities,  and  open  a  whole  new  region 
of  possibilities,  or  rather,  impossibilities.  Such  suggestions  as 
your  last  seem  to  me  very  remote  from  the  category  of  the 
practical." 

"  As  for  redeeming  the  crown  diamonds  of  the  Empire  of 
Central  Africa,"  said  Bertie,  "for  such  you  know  your  jewels 
now  are, — if  you  want  to  do  that,  the  revolution  will  probably 
make  it  easy.  But  I  doubt  whether  the  Emperor  would  have 
consented  to  be  bound  by  his  agreement.  The  superstitious 
value  he  attached  to  their  possession  would  have  prevented 
that.  He  might,  however,  be  willing  to  pay  handsomely  for 
the  privilege  of  retaining  them ;  that  is,  in  the  event  of  his 
remaining  Emperor,  and  being  able  to  do  so." 

"How  would  you  spend  this  money?"  said  Criss,  suddenly 
addressing  Avenil. 

"  I  ?  Oh,  my  dear  boy,  you  know  my  foible.  It  has  been 
the  same  ever  since,  as  a  child,  I  was  caught  putting  a  ther- 
mometer into  the  pepper  and  the  mustard,  to  find  out  why  they 
burnt  my  mouth.  Experiment  is  the  basis  of  Science,  and 
Science  has  for  its  end  the  improvement  of  human it3^  I  have 
often  held  forth  to  you  respecting  that  which  I  regard  as  the 
Science  of  Sciences." 

"  You  mean  the  relations  of  capital,  labor,  and  land  ?  " 

"  Yes,  in  some  measure  ;  but  you  have  never  yet,  I  think, 
learned  to  see  the  subject  as  I  do,  from  a  religious  point  of 
view."  He  said  this  with  a  smile  ;  for  he  knew  that  it  was 
precisely  because  of  what  Criss  deemed  the  lack  of  the  religious 
element  in  his  character  that  they  had  never  been  in  complete 
accord. 

"  You  see,"  he  continued,  "  I  prefer  the  active  to  the  sub^ 
jective  or  speculative  form  of  the  religious  sentiment,  and 
regard  thinking  and  working  as  the  chiefest  of  man's  functions. 


15G  BF  AND  BY. 

Indeed,  for  mo,  the  term  woi'Jc  in  itself  means  the  comhination 
of  wishing,  willing,  and  acting.  It  was  because  you  would 
have  capital  that  I  wanted  you  to  have  an  estate.  The  mere 
laborer  puts  into  his  land  the  power  only  of  a  single  pair  of 
hands,  and  generally  of  an  undeveloped  brain.  The  cajiitalist 
works  it  with  the  accumulated  powers  of  several  generations  of 
mind  and  bod}''  in  combination.  For  capital  is  stored  industry. 
As  the  coal  beds,  to  which  England  owed  its  greatness  until 
their  approaching  exhaustion  led  to  the  discovery  of  something 
more  efficient,  represented  millions  of  years  of  stored  sun-power, 
so  capital  represents  the  accumulated  toil  of  ages.  There  is  no 
longer  the  old  antagonism  between  it  and  labor.  Such  antago- 
nism was  but  the  result  of  bad  management,  and  was  as  absurd 
as  an  antagonism  between  the  industry  of  the  past  and  that  of 
the  present — which,  indeed,  it  was.  I  don't  quite  coincide  in 
the  distinction  our  legal  friend  here  drew  just  now  between 
jjroperty  actually  realized,  and  property  in  process  of  realization. 
To  tax  capital  is  to  tax  wages,  which  are  paid  out  of  capital. 
I  differ  from  him  also  as  to  the  propriety  of  making  the  rich 
pay  nearly  all  the  expenses  of  government.  Because  a  man  is 
rich,  is  no  reason  why  he  should  be  robbed,  or  pay  for  the  pro- 
tection of  his  neighbors.  But  this  is  not  our  subject  just  now. 
You,  my  dear  Christmas,  have  in  your  hands  such  stored  indus- 
try as  I  have  described,  to  an  extent  absolutely  unprecedented 
for  one  of  your  years.  If  you  expend  a  million  a  year,  and  let 
the  rest  accumulate  for  another  twenty  years,  as  it  has  already 
done,  your  fortune  will  exceed  the  National  Debt,  whose  mag- 
nitude so  alarmed  our  ancestors  previously  to  the  Emancipation. 
But  it  is  a  small  matter 'that  there  be  money  in  the  world. 
What  does  matter,  is  the  hand  that  holds  it.  You  have  the 
money,  and  the  disposition  to  use  it  well.  My  fear  is  only, 
that  in  trjnng  to  use  it  too  well ;  that  is,  in  aiming  at  the 
impracticably  high  and  absolute,  you  will  fail  altogether.  Aim- 
ing at  the  ideal,  you  will  lose  the  real.  The  physical  good  of 
man  must  be  the  basis  of  the  moral.  The  grand  mistake  of  the 
ancient  world  lay  in  its  commencing  at  the  wrong  end.  It 
inverted  the  Pyramid.     Placing  religion  first,  they  proceeded 


BY  AND   BY.  157 

from  it  to  morals,  and  thence  to  physics.  That  is,  they  huilt 
on  that  of  which  they  knew  the  least.  From  the  unknown  and 
unknowahle,  they  inferred  the  knowable.  It  was  because  their 
religion,  while  claiming  to  be  the  basis  of  morals,  consisted  in 
assumptions,  that  it  failed  to  regenerate  the  world.  We 
moderns,  on  the  contrary,  starting  from  the  physical  and  veri- 
fiable, make  morals  the  basis  of  religion.  We  cannot,  as  did 
our  forefathers,  even  imagine  a  religion  divorced  from,  or  an- 
tagonistic to  morality.  We  hold  it  as  impossible  for  the  Divine 
Will  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  moral  law,  as  with  the  physical. 
For  us.  Religion  signifies  the  relation  of  the  part  to  the  whole, 
as  Morality  is  the  relation  of  part  to  part.  We  must  learn  the 
smaller  and  nearer  lesson  first.  From  our  duty  to  the  finite 
springs  the  idea  of  our  duty  to  the  Infinite.  If  we  care  not  for 
that  which  is  within  our  reach,  we  are  not  likely  to  care  for 
that  which  lies  beyond.  The  love  of  the  seen  must  precede  and 
produce  the  love  of  the  unseen.  Mysticism  is  not  necessarily 
insanity. 

"  You  deem  me  deficient  in  religious  sentiment,"  he  continued, 
in  a  tone  verging  on  solemnity.  "  Know,  then,  that  for  me,  the 
surface  of  this  earth  is  as  the  floor  of  heaven,  and  that  my  ideal 
of  life  is  to  tread  it,  as  the  angels  of  whom  you  are  wont  to 
dream,  with  firm  confidence  in  its  capacity  to  sustain  the  higher 
life  of  all  best  aspirations ;  and  that  the  only  proof  of  faith  is 
work.  It  is  by  work  alone  that  wishing  and  willing  transmute 
themselves  into  deeds.  We  are  products  of  the  earth.  To  im- 
prove the  soil,  is  to  go  a  long  way  towards  improving  the 
produce.  This  is  the  function  of  Capital ;  that  is,  of  work. 
You  have  only  to  find  an  occupation  worthy  of  yourself  and 
your  means ;  and  your  floating  ideas,  now  vague  and  undefined, 
will  gradually  arrange  themselves  harmoniously  and  musically 
ax'ound  it. 

"  One  word  more.  Do  not  think  I  wish  you  to  go  out  of 
your  way  to  compass  some  formal  eccentric  destiny.  My  mean- 
ing is,  that  you  should  rather  let  your  future  spring  out  of 
elements  which  come  naturally  in  your  way.  Many  a  man 
courts  failure,  and  wins  it,  by  rushing  into  a  position  for  which 
he  has  no  natural  call  or  aptitude." 


158  BY  AND  BY. 

Rarely  in  his  iiitcroour.se  witli  Criss  liad  Avenil  iiidirated  ho 
decided  an  appreciation  of  the  spiritual  side  of  thinj^s.  His 
l")resent  tone  excited  a  lively  feeling  of  satisfaction  in  the 
youth's  breast,  and  he  felt  as  if  he  had  scarcely  done  justice 
before  to  the  character  of  his  guardian's  mind,  and  the  school  of 
which  he  was  so  distinguished  a  member.  Criss  was  accus- 
tomed to  hear  students  of  science  characterized  by  his  friends 
among  the  Remnant  as  irreligious  and  atheistic.  He  was  glad 
to  have  such  evidence  that  the  epithets  were  unmeaning  or 
undeserved. 

Bertie  then  alluded  to  the  event  of  the  morrow,  and  invited 
the  whole  party  to  spend  the  day  at  his  cottage  on  the  Surrey 
Downs.  Criss  expressed  his  readiness,  and  added  that  he  must 
immediately  afterwards  run  over  to  Algiers,  to  see  the  wounded 
man  he  had  picked  up  in  the  desert. 

"You  certainly  seem  born  for  the  rescue  of  folks  in  trouble," 
remarked  Avenil.  *'  I  suppose  some  mishap  is  constantly  occur- 
ring to  somebody,  and  as  you  are  always  on  the  move,  you 
naturally  light  upon  the  victims.  By  the  way,  I  see  that  this 
evening's  papers  give  an  account  of  the  deposition  and  flight 
of  the  Emperor  of  Soudan,  and  mention  that  he  is  supposed  to 
have  perished  in  the  desert  while  endeavoring  to  reach  Mour- 
zouk  or  Darfur,  and  that  he  must  have  taken  the  crown  jewels 
with  him.  That  hideous  Sahara  ! "  he  added,  "  it  is  even  a 
greater  nuisance  to  our  hemisphere  than  the  desert  interior 
of  Australia  is  to  that  southern  world.  But  for  Africa,  I 
suspect  that  Eurojje  would  have  been  far  more  habitable  than 
it  is." 

"That  is  exactly  what  occurred  to  me  at  the  time,"  said 
Criss.  "And  I  thought  it  such  a  pity  that  all  the  abundant 
rivers  which  belong  to  it,  should  carry  their  waters  riglit  away 
from  its  centre,  instead  of  flowing  through  it." 

Here  the  conversation  was  intermitted  by  the  entry  of  a  ser- 
vant, who  stated  that  an  aerial  parcel-express  carrier  had 
brought  a  package  for  Mr.  Carol  to  be  delivered  to  himself  only, 
and  for  which  he  must  have  his  receipt. 


BY  AND  BY.  159 

Carol  left  the  room,  and  returning  a  few  moments  afterwards 
with  a  small  box  and  an  open  letter  in  his  hands,  he  told  his 
friends  tliat  he  had  just  learnt  the  death  of  the  man  he  had  left 
in  Algiers.  The  letter  he  had  read  was  from  the  minister,  who 
wrote  that  he  would  find  within  the  box  a  communication  in 
Arabic,  which  the  dj'ing  man  wrote  himself,  and  which,  with 
the  other  contents  of  the  box,  he  had  assured  him  was  of  the 
utmost  importance. 

"  Is  there  any  pledge  of  secrecy  ?  "  asked  Avenil. 

"None,  now  that  the  poor  man  is  dead,"  said  Criss,  "and  I 
shall  be  only  too  glad  to  let  you  have  as  much  information  as  I 
myself  possess." 

And  opening  the  dead  man's  letter,  he  set  himself  to  give  its 
purport  in  English.  Before  he  had  translated  the  first  sen- 
tence, his  hand  dropped,  and  he  exclaimed, — 

"It  was  the  Emperor  himself  !" 

"What!"  cried  Avenil,  Bertie,  and  the  lawyer  together; 
"  the  fugitive  whom  you  rescued,  the  man  who  has  sent  jom 
that  packet  ?  Open  it,  open  it  at  once  !  It  was  he  who  bought 
your  jewels !  " 

"See  for  yourselves,"  said  Criss,  "while  I  read  tliis  letter." 

With  eager  hands — for,  grave  men  though  they  were,  the 
singularity'  of  the  coincidence  was  enough  to  disturb  their 
gravity — they  opened  the  box.  More  eagerly  yet  they  opened 
the  casket  which  it  contained,  a  golden  one,  with  a  diadem  in  a 
monogram  on  the  outside.  They  then  removed  some  layers  of 
cotton ;  when,  in  superb  and  serene  beauty,  like  the  sun  sur- 
rounded by  his  planets,  a  magnificent  diamond  was  revealed, 
with  a  number  of  smaller  ones  attached  to  it  in  an  oval  setting. 
Then  Avenil  read  the  inscription,  which  was  in  Arabic,  and  ran 
thus : — 

"The  Talisman  of  Solomon,  and  crown  jewels  of  Theodorus, 
Emperor  of  Soudan." 

A  second  compartment  contained  a  number  of  other  jewels  of 
remarkable  size  and  beaut}' ;  and  beneath  this,  at  the  bottom  of 
the  casket,  was  the  duplicate  of  the  bill  of  sale  and  covenant  to 
restore    them    to    the    agents    or    representatives  of  Christmas 


160  BY  AND  BY. 

Carol,  at  the  same  price  at  which  they  had  been  bought,  should 
the  demand  be  made  within  one  year  of  the  said  Christmas 
Carol  attaining  the  age  of  twenty-one. 

"Here  are  more  millions  for  you,"  said  Avenil,  handing  him 
the  casket.  "  But  pray  what  says  his  unhapp}'  JNIajesty  in  his 
letter  ?  Did  he  know  that  you  were  the  Christmas  Carol 
named  here,  and  does  he  make  you  a  present  of  them  ?  " 

"  You  shall  hear  it,"  returned  Criss,  and  he  read  thus,  trans- 
lating as  he  went  on  : 

"  Theodorus,  Emperor  of  Abyssinia  and  Soudan,  now  dying 
at  Algiers  of  wounds  received  from  dastard  rebels  and  traitors, 
to  the  3'oung  Englishman,  Israelite,  and  Greek,  Christmas 
Carol. 

"  But  for  the  aid  of  thy  hand,  my  bones  would  now  be 
whitening  the  Sahara.  But  for  the  true  spirit  in  thine  eyes, 
my  jewels,  the  sacred  Talisman  of  Solomon,  the  cherished  orna- 
ments of  my  crown,  and  ancient  heir-looms  of  my  family,  would 
now  be  lying  beneath  the  sands  of  the  desert,  hidden  for  ever 
from  the  eye  of  man.  So  many  dangers  and  chances  have  they 
survived  since  the  day  when  they  gleamed  upon  the  diadem  of 
my  ancestor  Solomon,  that  it  is  no  impiety  to  suppose  that  the 
Divine  Eramer  of  Destiny  reserves  them  for  further  glories. 
But  it  is  not  vouchsafed  to  me  to  know  what  the  future  will 
bring  forth. 

'•  How  they  first  came  into  your  hands  I  know  not ;  per- 
chance you  received  them  from  him  by  whom  many  years  ago 
they  were  sacrilegiously  rapt  away  from  the  kingdom,  even 
from  my  Uncle,  to  whom  as  Regent  in  my  minority  their 
guardianship  was  entrusted.  Exiled  from  the  country,  he 
roamed  the  world,  and  then  settled  in  Damascus,  where  he 
dwelt  long.  But  when  I  sought  him  there,  he  had  mysterious- 
ly disappeared.  He  was  of  the  elder  branch,  but  illegitimate. 
Mine  alone  is  the  line  of  the  rightful  sovereign. 

"  I  leave  a  Son,  sole  heir  to  my  throne  and  crown.  Should 
he  become  Emperor,  these  gems  would  be  his,  save  for  the  right 
which   you    possess    of   re-purchasing   them.     I   need   not  say 


BY  AND  BY.  IGl 

'Deal  kind!}'  1\y  him,  as  you  have  dealt  by  his  father! '  for  you 
will  do  so.  And  to  you  doing  so,  and  asking  what  you  will,  he 
will  grant  the.  half  of  his  kingdom,  even  to  the  turning  of  the 
Sahara  into  a  smiling  garden,  as  one  of  our  proverbs  hath  it. 

"Should  he  not  come  into  his  imperial  rights,  you  may  serve 
him  Letter  than  by  restoring  to  him  the  gems.  Wlio  knows 
but  that  in  serving  him  you  will  be  serving  j'our  own  blood. 
Your  lineaments,  as  well  as  your  connection  with  these  jewels, 
indicate  you  as  not  far  removed  from  our  royal  race.  But  of 
this  I  know  nought.  "Wonderful  are  the  ways  of  the  Almighty. 
Peace  be  with  you.     Farewell." 


CHAPTER  VII. 


The  conversation  at  Bertie's  next  day  turned  much  upon 
Criss's  recent  adventures.  His  guardians  were  chiefly  struck 
by  his  apparent  indifference  to  the  wealth  of  which  he  found 
himself  possessed,  and  his  pre-occupation  by  the  idea  of  respon- 
sibility imposed  upon  him  by  his  position.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
lost  his  independence,  instead  of  gaining  it,  by  being  so  rich. 
He  was  much  affected,  too,  by  the  strangeness  and  nature  of 
the  coincidence  that  thus,  on  the  eve  of  his  birthday,  revealed  a 
clue  to  the  mystery  of  his  birth. 

"  You  will  take  an  interest  now,"  remarked  Avenil  to  him, 
''in  watching  the  telegrams  to  learn  the  progress  of  political 
events  in  Central  Africa.  Should  the  Emperor's  son  succeed  in 
recovering  the  throne,  he  will  be  ready  to  accord  a  warm  wel- 
come to  the  rescuer  of  his  father,  the  restorer  of  his  crown  jew- 
els, and  a  possible  blood-relation.  But  you  must  not  let  him 
detain  you  from  us  as  a  ne-w-found  friend  from  whom  he  cannot 
part." 

"You  think  there  are  parts  of  the  world  where  capital  can 
be  more  usefully  employed  than  in  Central  Africa  ?  "  remarked 
11 


162  BY  AND  BY. 

Criss,  with  an  arch  smile,  the  meaning  of  whith  Avenil  Mas  at 
no  loss  to  interpret  and  appropriate. 

''Employ  it,"  he  said,  "upon  Kaces  whose  capacity  for  a  high 
civilization  renders  tliem  worthy  of  preservation.  It  is  not  in 
tropical  Africa  that  such  can  suhsist." 

'"I  suspect  you  are  more  than  half  of  the  opinion  I  found  ex- 
pressed somewhere,  that  the  tropics  are  a  mistake  altogether," 
returned  Criss;  "and  would  have  preferred  that  the  land  of 
the  earth,  instead  of  running  north  and  south,  had  been  placed 
east  and  west,  in  broad  belts,  and  confined  to  the  temperate 
zone,  with  the  sea  occupj-ing  all  the  polar  and  equatorial 
spaces." 

"  It  is  possible  that  it  was  so  once,"  replied  Avenil.  The 
present  configuration  of  the  continents  indicates  the  action  of 
strong  currents  setting  continuously  in  one  direction,  parallel 
and  not  transversely  to  their  coasts,  just  as  would  occur  were 
the  earth  to  revolve  from  north  to  south  instead  of  from  west 
to  east — " 

"  Come,  come  !  "  exclaimed  Bertie,  "  we  won't  waste  to-day 
upon  serious  talk.  Here  are  a  number  of  guests  to  whom  you 
must  pay  attention,  some  of  them  your  old  school-fellows,  Criss ; 
and  all  your  tribe,  Avenil.' 

It  was  a  happy  evening,  for  Criss  was  much  beloved,  and  all 
rejoiced  in  his  accession  to  man's  estate  and  a  position  of  afflu- 
ence ;  though  of  the  extent  of  the  latter  none  but  his  guardians 
had  any  conception.  Together  with  the  respect  and  affection 
which  Criss  inspired,  there  was  mingled  a  certain  sentiment  of 
curiosity  and  wonderment.  All  with  whom  he  came  into  contact 
felt  that  he  was  not  completely  of  them  or  their  kind,  but  had 
a  life  apart,  and  into  which  they  could  not  enter.  He  was  to 
them  as  a  stranger,  who  arrives  and  takes  up  his  abode  in  a  new 
countrj',  having  spent  his  previous  life  amid  scenes  and  associa- 
tions altogether  unknown  to  his  new  neighbors.  Of  these  he 
learns  the  outward  ways,  and  adopts  the  outward  speech  and 
garb  and  manners;  but  they  all  the  time  feel  that  his  mind  is 
filled  with  memories  altogether  foreign  to  his  present  surround- 


BY  AND  BY.  163 

ings,  and  to  which  they  have  no  clue.  However  much  they 
may  admire  and  believe  in  him,  they  yet  never  feel  that  he 
sympathizes  entirely  with  them.  If  that  which  they  see  of  his 
character  does  not  inspire  them  with  respect  for  its  quality  or 
power,  their  very  ignorance  of  him  in  the  past  produces  mis- 
trust of  him  for  the  future.  If  their  estimate  be  favorable,  the 
sense  of  mysterj^^bout  him  serves  to  engender  a  certain  amount 
of  awe.  Suggesting  the  unknown,  he  suggests  also  the  iniiuite. 
Respecting  one,  whose  life  and  conversation  was  known  to  be 
so  much  in  the  unfamiliar  heavens  as  Criss's,  curiosity  ran 
strong  to  see  how  he  would  fulfil  his  part  on  earth.  He  was 
evidently  not  of  the  brood  of  the  commonplace,  who  so  readily 
become  au  fait  of  the  small  technicalities  of  life.  The  light 
that  shone  from  hini  hnd  its  source  within,  and  it  rested  not  on 
the  trivial.  The  best  painters  of  the  time  despaired  of  render- 
ing the  translucent  envelope  of  his  body  through  which  his  lu- 
minous soul  shone  forth. 

Avenil's  dominant  feeling  respecting  such  a  temperament 
was  one  of  apprehension.  One  of  his  reasons  for  urging  Criss 
to  practical  work,  was  founded  in  his  alarm  lest  the  very  sensi- 
tiveness of  his  organization  should  work  its  own  ruin.  Steady 
occupation  he  held  to  be  the  best  cure  for  a  tendency  to  the 
over-soul.  He  hailed  the  recent  incidents  in  Criss's  career, 
chiefly  for  the  effect  they  might  have  in  drawing  him  to  the 
practical.  Por  the  same  reason  he  would  have  hailed  his 
marriage,  even  with  an  inferior  nature.  In  his  eyes  Criss  was 
made  of  the  stuff  that  has  afforded  martyrs  to  the  cross  and 
the  stake ;  that  is,  the  stuff  of  which  enthusiasts  for  an  idea  aro 
made ;  and  to  Avenil  such  enthusiasm  was  the  offspring  of  a 
taint  of  insanity. 

The  party  at  Ariel  Cottage  included  the  Bishop  of  the 
diocese,  who,  as  chief  inspector  of  the  National  Schools  of  the 
district,  had  long  known  Criss,  and  knowing  him,  had  always 
loved  him.  Another  also  of  Criss's  ecclesiastical  friends,  the 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  was  present.  His  festival  in  the  INlctro- 
politan  Cathedral  had   taken   place   in  the  morning,  and  Criss 


104  BY  AND  BY. 

Inid  attondcfl  it.  For  he  was  strongly  attached  to  St.  Paul's, 
which  standing  in  the  dense  and  husy  heart  of  the  great  city, 
was  in  its  finished  perfection,  for  him  as  for  all  enthusiastic 
citizens,  a  monument  of  the.  final  overthrow  of  the  sectarian 
spirit  in  these  isles,  and  of  the  triumph  of  the  sentiment  of 
citizenship  and  humanity  over  that  of  church  and  creed.  It 
was  to  Criss  alone  of  aerialists  that  the  Dean  had  given  permis- 
sion to  alight  and  irst  on  the  summit  of  his  church. 

In  the  evening  the  whole  party  adjourned  to  the  Cathedral 
on  the  Downs,  a  noble  edifice  belonging  to  the  period  of  the 
Emancipation.  It  was  maiidy  built  and  endowed  from  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  of  a  number  of  churches  and  cluqjels 
belonging  to  the  various  sects  into  which  the  population  of 
the  district  had  once  been  divided.  These,  sharing  the  general 
enthusiasm  of  the  nation  on  shaking  off  the  yoke  of  media?val- 
ism,  at  finding  that  the  widest  cultivation  of  their  intellectual 
and  affectional  faculties,  was  not  incompatible  with  the  exercise 
of  the  religious  sentiment,  and  that  the  religious  sentiment 
itself  is  a  living,  and  not  an  historical  affection, — brought  the 
property  which  they  possessed  as  separate  and  hostile  sects, 
and  cast  it  into  the  lap  of  the  Establishment,  to  be  expended 
in  converting  that  ancient  organization  into  a  National  institu- 
tion for  promoting  the  general  welfare,  moral,  intellectual,  and 
spiritual,  of  the  entire  nation. 

Brought  up,  as  I  was,  in  the  narrow  sectarianism  of  the 
orthodox  ''  Iiew7irnif"  and  only  recently  made  a  partaker  of  the 
Emancipation,  I  can  better  than  most  of  my  readers,  appreciate 
the  blessedness  of  the  change  which  our  country  then  under- 
went. Accustomed  as  most  of  us  are  to  it,  we  have  need  to  be 
careful  students  of  history  to  realize  the  difference  between 
England  torn  and  rent  by  theological  and  ecclesiastical  divi- 
sions, and  England  in  the  enjoyment  of  unanimity  of  sentiment, 
even  where  opinions  differ.  What  a  contrast  there  is  between 
the  feelings  with  which  I  contemplate  the  harsh  exclusiveness 
M'herein  my  own  youth  was  instructed  to  restrict  and  confine 
itself  to  the  narrowest  and  most  revolting  conceptions  of  the 
UniA-erse,   and  the    sentiments   evoked   by  this  broad,  genial, 


BY  AND  BT.  1G5 

capacious  edifice  about  wliicli  are  entwined  the  hearts  of  all  the 
surrounding  dwellers,  from  their  earliest  youth  to  their  latest 
age. 

The  Bishop  himself, — I  have  since  made  his  acquaintance, 
and  learnt  to  regret  his  death, — came  in  for  his  full  share  of 
the  warm  feelings  which  clustered  around  his  cathedral.  He 
fulfilled  the  ideal  of  a  Bishop  of  the  period,  whose  functions 
comprised  the  feeding  of  the  lambs  of  his  flock  as  well  as  the 
tending  of  the  sheep.  The  steadiness  with  which  he  main- 
tained the  rational  character  of  the  teaching  given,  both  in  the 
schools  and  the  churches  of  his  diocese,  won  the  highest  con- 
fidence of  all  parents.  Holding  fast  to  the  doctrine,  that  it  is 
the  function  of  education  to  make  boys  and  girls  into  good  and 
capable  men  and  women,  and  at  the  same  time  to  develop  their 
respective  individualities ;  his  administration  has  been  notal)le 
for  its  success  in  producing  valuable  citizens.  An  illustration 
of  his  width  of  spirit  is  to  be  found  in  his  choice  of  a  motto 
when  one  of  his  parishioners  desired  to  add  an  inscription  as  a 
decoration  to  the  Cathedral : — "  All  sects  abandon,  ye  who  enter 
here." 

In  no  spirit  of  perfunctionary  routine,  but  thoroughly  coti 
amore,  did  the  good  Bishop  perform  what  he  undertook.  The 
ancient  festival  of  Chistmas  was  one  in  which  he  had  special 
d. 'light.  Taking  as  a  model  the  old-fashioned  Oratorio 
whirh  we  derive  from  our  ancestors  of  the  seventeenth  or 
eighteenth  century,  he  loved  to  found  on  it  some  musical  ser- 
vice, which  while  representing  objectively  the  season  of  the 
year,  yet  possessed  an  esoteric  significance  for  those  who  were 
capable  of  perceiving  it.  But  what  that  significance  should 
be,  he  dictated  to  none.  It  was  for  Science  to  ascertain  and  fix 
phenomena.  It  was  for  Art  to  represent  them  ;  and  for  Nature 
and  the  individual  soul  to  settle  their  interpretation  between 
them.  Thus  only,  he  held,  could  God  speak  freely  to  man. 
These  .services  were  sung  by  an  admirable  choir,  which  he  had 
siiected  from  among  all  ages  and  classes,  of  both  sexes,  in  the 


IGG  BY  AXD  BY. 

neighborhood.  And  most  enthusiastically  did  they  enter  into 
the  spirit  of  their  task,  and  flock  to  the  Cathedral  on  tlie  occa- 
sions in  question. 

It  was  a  model  Christmas-day  for  the  climate.  The  snow 
had  fallen  at  intervals,  and  a  thin  layer  now  covered  the  ground. 
When,  towards  nine  o'clock,  the  party  started  from  Bertie's 
for  the  cathedral,  the  wind  had  fallen,  the  sky  was  clear,  and 
the  stars  shone  out  their  brightest.  As  they  passed  by  villa 
and  garden,  the  trees  and  shrubs  crackled  and  glistened  in  the 
frost.  The  bells  rang  out  a  joyous  peal.  The  whole  district 
was  on  the  alert.  Everybody  was  going  to  the  Oratorio.  It 
was  known  that  the  Bishop  had  requested  the  choir  to  observe 
strict  secrecy  respecting  the  piece  to  be  performed.  This  added 
to  the  interest. 

The  service  of  the  evening  was  prefaced  by  the  Bishop  with 
a  brief  address,  rather  colloquial  than  formal ;  and  there  were 
not  Avanting  those  among  Bertie's  party  who  fancied  that  it 
possessed  a  greater  capacity  than  usual  for  jiersonal  application. 
During  its  delivery  the  vast  building  was  wrapped  in  gloom, 
the  only  light  visible  being  that  which  directed  its  rays  on  the 
pulpit. 

After  a  few  hearty  words  of  welcpme,  the  Bishop  said  he 
should  revert  to  the  old  ecclesiastical  custom  of  taking  a  sentence 
from  the  ancient  sacred  book  of  Christendom,  as  the  key-note 
of  his  remarks.  That  sentence  was,  "These  Three  are  One;" 
a  sentence  which,  though  well  known  to  be  ungenuine,  was  not, 
therefore,  necessarily  untrue.  The  object  of  all  right  rever- 
ence, he  said,  is  a  compound  object,  of  which  each  constituent 
is  distinct  and  complete  in  itself,  and  yet  incapable  of  being 
detached  from  the  others.  Nations,  as  well  as  individuals,  in 
seeking  to  effect  such  detachment,  had  invariably  degraded 
their  religion  to  a  kind  of  polytheism,  and  the  degeneration  of 
their  faith  had  involved  that  of  themselves.  The  Greeks  wor- 
shipped Beauty,  finding  their  ideal  in  physical  humanity.  The 
Jews  aimed  at   goodness   or  obedience  to  God,  but   ignoring  a 


BY   AND  BY.  167 

human  criterion  imagined  a  deity  independent  of  a  moral  law. 
We  ourselves,  again,  were  too  liable  to  give  the  supremacy  to 
the  Useful.  But  the  Holy  Trinitj'  of  the  excellencies  could 
not  thus  be  divided.  There  is  no  Beauty  without  Use  ;  no  Use 
without  Goodness  ;  no  Goodness  without  Beauty.  Each  indi- 
vidual present  probably  felt  drawn  more  towards  some  one  of 
these  sacred  elements  than  towards  the  others.  The  most  for- 
tunate were  those  for  whom  all  three  possessed  an  equal  attrac- 
tion. The  greatest  advance  man  had  ever  made  was  when  he 
erected  his  instinctive  love  of  Beauty,  Goodness,  and  Use,  into 
a  religion,  and  resolved  to  accord  his  best  reverence  to  One 
whom  he  deemed  to  excel  all  others  in  the  possession  of  them. 
Man's  instinct  had  then  proved  too  strong  for  the  priesthoods ; 
and  in  order  to  retain  their  influence,  these  had  to  give  up  their 
deities,  which  were  but  caricatures  of  humanity,  and  adopt  the 
ideal  recognized  and  insisted  upon  by  men.  The  transatlantic 
poet-sage  struck  a  true  key-note  when  he  said, — 

"  An  honest  God's  the  noblest  work  of  man." 

It  was  true  that  the  ideal  had  not  always  since  been  main- 
tained. It  had  oft  been  by  the  nations  crucified,  and  buried, 
and  relegated  to  the  lowermost  parts  of  the  earth;  but  like  the 
sun,  whose  rising  from  the  depths  of  winter  and  darkness, 
they  were  now  met  to  celebrate,  it  had  been  impossible  to  keep 
it  down.  The  greatest  relapse  had  been  when  men,  fancying 
that  truth  was  a  thing  to  be  kept  hermetically  sealed  as  in  a 
bottle,  instead  of  requiring  free  light  and  air  to  keep  it  sweet 
and  wholesome,  mistook  C/mrchianity  for  Christianity,  and 
made  religion  once  more  a  set  of  opinions  and  a  profession  for 
a  Caste. 

It  must  ever  be  so  when  we  submit  the  sentiments,  whose 
essence  is  spontaneousness  and  flexibility,  to  be  devitalized  and 
crystalized  -by  professional  formalists.  Now  that  we  have  finally 
got  rid  of  these,  we  find  an  infinitely  freer  and  fuller  recogni- 
tion of  all  that  was  good  and  true  in  the  old  systems,  inasmuch 
as  we  accept  it  for  its  own  sake.  "  For  ourselves,"  the  Bishop 
concluded,  "let  us  strive  to  be  Greeks,  in  our  love  of  that  which 


168  BY  AND  BY. 

is  beautiful ;  Hebrews,  in  our  allegiance  to  divine  goodness ; 
and  Englislnnen,  in  our  devotion  to  that  which  is  Useful  and 
True.  And  if,  perchance,  any  of  us  here  present  be  conscious 
of  possessing  exceptional  powers  and  advantages,  let  us  not 
waste  ourselves  and  them  in  the  search  for  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities whereon  to  employ  them.  As,  in  the  domain  of  knowl- 
edge, the  fact  that  lies  nearest  to  us,  the  fact  of  our  own  exist- 
ence, must  ever  be  the  starting-point  for  all  excursions  towards 
truths  which  are  more  remote ;  so,  in  the  domain  of  action,  the 
duties  which  lie  immediately  around  us,  and  spring  out  of  our 
circumstances  and  nature,  are  those  to  which  we  should  first 
devote  ourselves,  trusting  to  Providence  to  find  others,  should 
such  be  desirable.  History  shows  that  it  was  only  when  Eng- 
land abandoned  her  useless  attempts  to  convert  savages  to  her 
own  commercial  and  theological  beliefs,  and  directed  her  whole 
undivided  energies  to  the  improvement  of  her  own  social  and 
mental  condition,  that  she  became  the  true  missionary — the 
missionary  who  can  point  to  the  happy  effects  of  his  principles 
in  his  own  case  as  an  argument  for  their  propagation." 

The  Cantata  to  be  sung  on  that  occasion  was  a  hymn  of  the 
yeai',  the  words  of  which  were  the  work  of  a  well-esteemed 
young  member  of  that  congregation,  who  first  saw  the  light  on 
that  day  twenty-one  years  ago. 

"  You  will,  I  am  sure,"  added  the  Bishop,  "  join  me  in  the 
wish  that,  as  is  his  verse,  so  may  his  and  our  lives  be  :  a  Christ- 
mas Carol  and  a  song  of  praise,  and  a  standard  of  Beauty,  Good- 
ness, and  Usefulness.  And  may  we  succeed  in  so  closely 
assimilating  our  real  to  our  ideal,  that  the  subjective  shall  be- 
come for  us  the  objective,  and  faithfully  reilect  within  us  the 
universe  that  lies  without  us.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  dictate  to 
any ;  but  for  myself,  I  may  say  that  the  ever-recurring  pheno- 
mena of  the  system  of  which  we  are  a  part,  are  in  a  striking 
correspondence  with  the  phenomena  of  my  own  heart.  Like 
the  sun,  whose  renascence,  as  I  have  said,  Ave  this  day  celebrate, 
the  ideal  towards  which  I  would  fain  strive,  though  always 
suffering  and  dying  within  me,  is  also  always  rising  and  ascend- 
ing :  oft  obscured  by  the  clouds  and  mists  of  doubt  and  diffi- 


BY  AND  BY.  169 

culty,  and  oft  again  sliining  out  with  a  brightness  and  a  warmth 
that  draws  nie  up  perforce  towards  it." 

Criss's  amazement  at  the  Bishop's  announcement  was  su- 
preme. He  turned  for  an  explanation  to  Bertie,  who  sat  by 
him. 

"  My  dear  boy,"  he  said,  "  I  have  to  ask  your  pardon.  I 
found  the  verses  some  time  ago,  and  showed  them  to  the 
Bishop.  He  begged  them  of  me.  I  did  not  know  he  would 
use  them  in  this  way.  Considering  his  eagerness,  and  his 
regard  for  3'ou,  I  am  inclined  to  praise  him  for  the  very  delicate 
way  in  which  he  brought  in  your  name.  Only  your  own  friends 
would  detect  the  allusion." 

"  I  do  not  mind  that,"  said  Criss  ;  "  but  I  had  forgotten  all 
about  the  piece.  It  was  a  mere  boyish  production,  and  far 
from  finished  ;  and  if  I  remember  right,  I  never  felt  quite  sure 
that  some  of  the  lines  were  altogether  new,  though  I  never 
succeeded  in  tracing  them." 

As  he  spoke  there  came  welling  through  the  darkness  from 
the  choir,  at  the  far  end  of  the  chancel,  in  a  low,  wailing  reci- 
tative, this  lament  for  the  departure  of  STimmer  and  approach 
of  winter : 

Earth  wrapped  in  gloom 
No  liglit,  no  heat, 
No  fruits,  no  flowers; 
But  storm  and  snow 
In  all  our  bowers. 
The  Lord  of  life  sinks  low 
Toward  the  tomb. 

The  effect  of  this  was  weird  in  the  extreme.  A  perceptible 
shiver  ran  through  the  whole  vast  congregation.  Then  a 
rich  contralto  voice  was  heard  singing  the  plaintive  verses  be- 
ginning,— 

Where  is  our  laughter  fled  ? 
to  which  a  tenor  responded  in  strains  exciting  to  hope, — 

Yon  moon  derives  lier  light  from  him ; 
Perchance  'tis  we  are  turned  away: 
Perchance  he  visits  other  lands. 
And,  timely,  hither  back  will  stray, 


170  BY  AND  BY. 

With  rays  nor  cold  nor  dim. 
No  need  to  think  our  Lord  is  dead, 
Because  sleep's  pillow  claims  his  head. 

But  to  the  eye  of  sense  there  is  as  yet  no  ground  for  hope. 
Despair  still  strives  for  utterance,  and  finds  it  at  the  mouth  of 
the  bass,  who  now  breaks  forth  into  the  expression  of  doubt,  be- 
ginning,— 

Declined  so  low, 
Mid  storm  and  snow. 
Wilt  ever  rise  again  ? 

A  sentiment  in  which  the  chorus  seems  to  participate,  for  it 
now  indulges  in  the  soft  minor  air,  beginning  with — 

When  the  lamp  of  life  burns  low; 

and  suddenly  (^hanging  into  the  major  with  the  bold  aria, — 

The  wintry  dragon  claims  his  prey. 

The  sun  now  pausing  in  his  downward  career,  the  watcliers 
are  speechless  with  anxiety.  Is  the  king  of  day  still  able,  in 
this  his  hour  of  weakness,  to  contend  successfully  with  the  bale- 
ful j)owers  of  darkness?  During  this  period  of  doubt,  the  mu- 
sic alone  is  heard,  in  low  and  fitful  strains  of  alternate  hope  and 
fear.  When  the  last  moment  of  the  Solstice  arrives,  the  music 
is  hushed,  and  the  intense  stillness  broken  by  a  soprano  voice 
singing  the  lovely  air, — 

Weak  in  the  cradle  of  tlie  year. 

Then  suddenly  the  whole  strength  of  the  chorus  joins  in 
singing  the  bravura — 

BafDed  winter  hie  thee  hence. 

At  this  juncture  the  cathedral  grows  lighter,  in  correspond- 
ence with  the  period  represented ;  and  the  music  changes  its 
character  so  as  to  indicate  the  sun's  growth  in  height  and 
strength,  as  the  days  increase  in  length,  until  the  arrival  of 
the  spring  equinox.     Then  once  again  comes  in  an  interval  of 


7?r  AND  BY.  171 

doubt.  Will  he  maintain  the  ground  gained  from  the  powers 
of  darkness,  or  recede  once  more  towards  the  horizon  ?  This 
fear  is  expressed  in  the  song : — 

Balanced  the  scales  of  day  and  night. 

But  the  sun  still  goes  on  his.tupward  way,  and  so  the  entire 
chorus  and  orchestra,  together  with  the  grand  organ,  break 
forth  into  pseans  of  tumultuous  joy,  as  the  king  of  heaven  as- 
cends triumphant  into  the  sky,  revealing  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  or  summer,  and  showering  down  gifts  on  men,  in  food 
and  raiment,  mirth  and  love  and  marriage-blessing;  and  the 
whole  concludes  with  the  Jubilate, — 

Great  God  of  Nature,  Hail ! 
By  Thee  sustained  we  live. 
Not  once  hast  Thou  appeared  for  all, 
And  left  us  then 
To  fail  and  fall: 
But  year  by  year  Thy  presence  shows, 
In  winter's  snows, 
In  summer's  sun, 
In  life  and  death, 
In  joy  and  grief, 
That  thou,  and  we,  and  all,  are  one: 
We  the  parts  and  Thou  the  Whole, 
We  the  body,  Thou  the  soul : 
That  Thou  art  All,  and  else  is  none ! 

Talking  with  the  Bishop  afterwards,  Criss  said  that  if  he 
were  to  re-write  it  now,  he  would  say  a  good  wdrd  for  winter  ; 
for  that  even  cold  and  darkness  have  their  uses,  and  were  not 
unmixed  evils,  if  evils  at  all. 

"  Then  you  would  have  just  spoilt  it  for  our  purpose,"  replied 
the  Bishop,  with  a  smile.  "  A  devil  of  some  sort  is  a  dramatic 
necessity." 


BOOK    III. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  insurrection  in  Soudan,  and  the  flight  of  the  Emperor, 
caused   great   consternation  in  Palestine.     The  millionaires  of 
Jerusalem   had  largely  invested  their  wealth  in  loans  to  the 
Government,  and  mortgages  on   the  rich   cotton,   sugar,  shea- 
butter,  ivory,  and  spice  estates  of  Central  Africa;!     It  was  their 
money  that  constructed  that  vast  work,  the  Red  Sea  and  Cen- 
tral  African  Plateau  Railway,  by  which  a  main  share  of  the 
products  of  the  continent  were  brought  to  their  markets.     The 
greater  portion  of  the  National  Debt  of  the  country  was  owing 
to   them ;  and,   in  fact,  the  Empire   of  Soudan  was  in  a  great 
degree  their  own  creation.     Cut  off  by  the  sandy  ocean  of  the 
Sahara  from  contact  with  the  mature  civilizations  of  the  North, 
and  accessible  only  by  Abyssinia  and  the  Red  Sea,  the  popula- 
tion which   had  been  combined   into  a  nation   and  converted 
from  Islamism  to  Christianity,  under  the  vigorous  dynasty  to 
which  Theodorus  belonged,   were  still   in   too    rudimentary   a 
stage  to  be  able  to  make  a  change  in  their  form  of  government 
without  imminent  danger  to  their  general  stability'  as  a  nation. 
Their  conversion  to   Christianity   from   Islamism,  while  facili- 
tating  their  intercourse  with  the  Jews,   had  still  left  them  a 
superstitious   people.     But   one   of  the    forms    taken    by  their 
superstition — to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made,  namely 
their  veneration  for  the  descendants  of  Solomon,  and  inheritors 
of  his  talismanic  gems — tended  to  stimulate  confidence  in  the 


BY    AND  BY.  173 

minds  of  capitalists  as  exorcising  a  conservative  influence.  Thoy 
might  not  be  altogether  favorable  to  the  Jews  themselves  as  such 
or  to  those  sections  of  Christendom  which  traced  their  religious 
descent  to  the  stock  of  David  ;  but  it  was  considered  impossible 
that  they  should  revolt  against  the  heirs  of  the  blood  and  crown 
of  Solomon.  So,  when  the  thoroughness  and  extent  of  the 
revolution  was  demonstrated  by  the  appearance  of  the  Emjje- 
ror's  son  as  a  fugitive  in  Jerusalem,  immediately  after  the 
arrival  of  the  intelligence  of  his  father's  deposition  and  flight, 
the  capitalists  of  Palestine  saw  nothing  but  repudiation,  con- 
fiscation, and  loss  staring  them  in  the  face.  There  were,  more- 
over, most  alarming  ri;mors  respecting  the  situation  of  the 
white  settlers  in  Soudan,  the  insurgents  being  believed  to  be 
hostile  to  the  presence  of  independent  foreign  communities 
in  their  country. 

It  is  by  virtue  of  their  wealth,  and  not  of  their  courage  or 
armaments,  that  the  Jews  of  Palestine  have  maintained  the 
sway  which  has  rendered  their  recent  history  so  remarkable. 
Whatever  the  project  resolved  upon,  they  have  but  to  find  the 
money,  and  there  are  plenty  of  others  to  find  the  method  and 
the  means  of  execution.  Thus,  without  a  soldier  or  sailor  of 
their  own,  they  avenge  themselves  by  contract  upon  peoples 
who,  being  as  yet  too  barbarous  to  acknowledge  the  solidarity 
of  nations,  and  join  the' confederated  ci\'ilizations  of  the  world, 
ventiire  to  outrage  their  interests  or  their  honor. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  functions  of  the  Grand  Council 
of  European  States  to  interfere  in  disputes  between'one  of  its 
own  members  and  a  nation  lying  outside  it.  But,  as  between 
its  own  members,  it  holds,  happily,  far  too  high  a  sense  of  its 
duties  to  allow  even  the  mighty  Jewish  influence  to  interfere 
with  its  strict  impartiality.  It  is  only  when  a  clear  case  of 
wilful  and  outrageous  wrong  is  made  out,  that  it  allows  the 
resort  to  force,  and  the  employment  of  the  military  forces  of 
the  Confederacy. 

The  moral'sense  of  the  rest  of  the  world  is  thus  an  effective 
counterpoise  to  the  tendency  manifested  by  the  capitalists  of 
Palestine  to  make  interest  dominate  over  right.     Pora  member 


174  BY  AND  BY. 

of  the  Confederacy  to  make  war  upon  a  fellow-member  without 
such  permission,  rightly  entails  a  forfeiture  of  the  protection  of 
the  Confederacy ;  and  lays  the  offending  member  open  to  retri- 
bution, as  an  individual  who,  in  a  civilized  country,  takes  the 
law  into  his  own  hands. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing,  it  was  fortunate  for  at 
least  one  of  the  peoples  neighboring  to  the  Jews,  that  they  were 
both  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Confederacy.  For  it  needed 
such  restraint  to  keep  the  ancient  enmity  of  the  Jews  to  the 
Egyptians,  from  breaking  out  into  fierce  expression  and  violence. 
The  Empire  of  Central  Africa  lay  outside,  and  was  equally 
hostile  to  Egypt ;  but  its  alliance  with  Palestine  made  it  too 
strong  to  be  molested  by  that  country ;  while  on  its  own  part  it 
was  restrained  by  a  wholesome  dread  of  the  Confederacy,  from 
wantonly  attacking  one  of  its  members. 

Its  peculiar  geographical  position,  too,  made  it  practically 
inaccessible,  either  by  sea  or  land.  Had  it  been  a  republic 
instead  of  a  monarchy,  it  could  have  defied  attack  from  all 
quarters  whatsoever.  But  its  political  system  was  not  adapted 
to  the  present  state  of  the  world.  The  advance  of  science  has 
rendered  the  person  of  a  sovereign  too  easily  assailable  for  a 
monarchical  regime  to  enjoy  the  same  security  as  that  of  a 
republic. 

When  the  public  credit  of  a  country  depends  upon  the 
stability  of  its  institutions,  and  those  institutions  are  summed 
up  in  and  represented  by  a  single  individual,  it  is  clear  that  the 
invention  of  flying  vessels,  which  can  at  any  moment  swoop 
down  with  an  armed  squadron  upon  any  spot  of  the  earth,  and 
carry  off  any  individual,  be  he  private  citizen  or  emperor,  must 
deprive  the  system  of  personal  government  of  any  element  of 
permanence. 

Even  under  the  ancient  "constitutional  monarchies,"  the 
liability  of  the  sovereign  to  seizure  by  death,  rendered  it  neces- 
sary to  postulate  for  him  a  fictional  immortality,  as  was  exem- 
plified in  the  sa^'ing,  "  the  king  never  dies."  But  liability 
to  seizure  by  balloon  is  anotlier  matter.  With  their  sove- 
reign  rapt   away   by   an    aerial   force,    and    his   whereabouts 


BY  ANT)  BY.  175 

t)eyond  their  ken,  it  would  be  impossible  for  a  people  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  throne  were  vacant  or  not. 

It  is  true  that,  to  some  extent,  the  evil  provides  its  own 
remedy;  for  it  is  possible- to  employ  an  aerial  guard  to  ward  off 
or  avenge  aerial  outrage.  But  experience  has  too  fully  mani- 
fested the  danger  of  entrusting  such  a  product  of  advanced 
science  to  a  people  civilized  enough  only  to  abuse  the  power  it 
confers  on  them.  Life  in  Central  Africa  was  intolerable,  until 
the  Jews  insisted  on  the  dependent  Empire  prohibiting  the 
practice  of  aerialism  within  its  limits ;  and  the  Emperor  faith- 
fully and  stringently  carried  out  the  injunction,  forbidding 
even  the  white  settlers  to  have  recourse  to  it.  The  only  excep- 
tion was  made  in  favor  of  transient  post-couriers,  who,  as  they 
could  not  be  prevented  from  passing  over  the  land,  were  per- 
mitted to  call  for  mails.  The  bulk  of  the  population  resented 
the  restriction,  and  it  served  to  inflame  the  dislike  they  already 
bore  to  the  Jews,  for  the  hard  terms  of  the  money  bargains  they 
had  made  with  them. 

The  long-smouldering  dissatisfaction  was  brought  to  a  crisis 
when  the  Emperor  resolutely  vetoed  an  act  passed  by  his  legis- 
lature for  repudiating  the  public  debt  conditionally  on  the 
Jews  refusing  to  lower  the  interest  by  one-half.  The  Emperor, 
though  sympathizing  with  his  people,  dared  not  do  otherwise ; 
for  not  only  was  he  a  man  of  high  integrity,  and  sagacity  enough 
to  know  the  ultimate  costliness  of  a  policy  of  repudiation  ;  but 
the  known  luiflinching  firmness  of  the  Jews  in  avenging  an 
injury  to  their  interests,  involved  severe  and  inevitable  punish- 
ment. There  were  not  wanting  rumors  of  swift  and  secret 
vengeance  inflicted  by  their  aeriel  agents  on  their  recalcitrant 
debtors.  On  this  occasion,  when  it  was  found,  on  assaulting 
the  ToysX  palace  in  Bornou,  that  both  the  Emperor  and  the 
crown  jewels  had  disappeared,  the  Jews  were  credited  with 
having  a  hand  in  the  work.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that 
the  jewels  had  disappeared,  as  we  know  by  their  being  found 
in  the  balloon  which  descended  on  the  iceberg  at  the  birth  of 
Christmas  Carol.  The  unhappy  Emperor  himself  has  told  us 
how  that  disappearance  was  effected.     But  even  he  was  ignorant 


176  BY  AND  Hi'. 

of  the  circumstances  attending  their  descent  into  the  volcano  ol 
Kilauea. 


»  » « »  » ■ 


CHAPTEE    II. 

OxCE  again  far  away  from  the  eartli's  teeming  surface,  and 
aloft  in  the  familiar  regions  of  the  upper  air.  Not  this  time 
bent  on  some  enterprise  of  science,  enjoyment,  or  humanity ; 
not  to  seek  intercourse  with  the  sublimated  occupants  of  the 
spiritual  world ;  but  solely  to  hold  commune  with  his  own 
inmost  self,  apart  ivom  all  disturbing  influences  of  circumstance 
and  man,  did  Christmas  Carol,  possessor  of  manly  youth, 
beauty,  courage,  skill,  strength,  knowledge,  millions,  and  a 
soul,  soar  aloft  to  find  in  meditative  abstraction  the  duty 
imposed  upon  him  by  his  newly  revealed  endowments. 

As  he  floated  swiftly  upon  the  eddying  currents  of  that  mid- 
winter season,  unheeding  whither  they  bore  him — so  absorbed 
was  he  by  his  own  thoughts — he  found  those  thoughts  taking 
shape  and  varying  as  never  had  they  done  before.  Thus,  at  one 
moment  he  found  himself  assailed  by  visions  of  all  sensuous 
delight,  in  which  every  ideal  of  excellence  in  nature  and  art 
seemed  to  be  subordinated  to  the  lower  self,  impelling  him,  in 
an  access  of  voluptiuiusness,  to  cry,  "  Oh,  Pleasure,  I  worship 
thee,"  and  to  regard  the  world  as  a  victim  to  be  lawfully 
offered  at  the  shrine  of  his  own  self-gratification. 

Wondering  whence  these  thoughts,  so  unfamiliar  to  him, 
proceeded,  he  chanced  to  glance  at  the  magnetic  register  of  his 
course,  and  found  that  he  was  poised  over  the  historic  land  of 
all  sensuous  life ;  that  land  wliose  rulers  had  ever  held  that 
their  country  must  be  great,  no  matter  at  what  expense  of  its 
neighbors ;  whose  people  had  ever  held  that  it  was  the 
function  of  all  their  rich  endowments  of  wit  and  knowledge  to 
minister  to  man's  lower  and  animal  nature ;  that  land  in  which 
the   moral   sense   and  pure  intelligence  had  never  raised  their 


BY  AND  BY.  177 

hea'ls  to  protest  against  the  national  selfishness,  but  to  lower 
them  speedily  in  agony  and  blood — the  land  of  France  ! 

Criss  had  learnt  from  his  angel  friends  that  there  is  a  mys- 
terious link  between  the  sympathies  of  the  upper  and  lower 
worlds  ;  and  the  discovery  of  his  position  showed  him  that  he 
must  now  be  under  the  influence  of  the  class  of  ideas  which 
have  their  root  in  the  Gallic  soil  and  temperament,  and  enter 
perchance  into  the  composition  of  the  heavens  above  them,  and 
tinge  the  souls  of  its  spiritual  occupants. 

Impatiently  rejecting  the  suggestions  thus  infused  into  his 
mind,  Criss  urged  his  car  onwards,  once  more  giving  rein  to 
his  spontaneous  thoughts.  Finding  a  more  robust  sentiment 
animating  him,  and  his  patriotic  emotions  taking  the  place  of 
all  others,  he  glanced  downwards,  and  found  by  the  white 
gleam  of  the  snowy  mountain  ridges  beneath  him,  that  he  was 
passing  over  the  land  once  of  Tell,  and  now  the  gymnasium  of 
nations. 

Presently  his  reverie  took  a  religious  character,  wherein  he 
found  himself  plied  with  impulses  to  devote  himself  wholly 
to  the  cultivation  of  all  that  is  beautiful  in  art  and  poetic  in 
sentiment,  in  conjunction  with  the  symbolism  of  the  ancient 
faiths,  and  so  to  build  up  a  universal  temple,  into  Avhich,  con- 
strained by  its  beauty  of  rite  and  mystery  of  doctrine,  all  men 
should  hasten  to  enter. 

"  Absorbed  in   me.  Self  will  disappear,"  said  the  voice  that 

now  addressed  him,  "  and  with  self  will  go  the  lower  loves, 

the  love  of  country  and  of  knowledge,  the  love  of  woman  and  of 
offspring,  and  the  man  will  appear  in  all  his  unimpeded  might, 
and  the  world  acknowledge  a  new  Caesar  and  Pontiff  of  reli- 
gion and  art." 

Glancing  once  more  at  his  index  he  perceived  that  he  had 
drifted  across  the  Alps,  and  was  being  assailed  by  the  spirit  of 
Italy ;  that  spirit  of  insatiable  dominion,  which  seeks  ever  to 
subordinate  mankind  to  one  overpowering  regime,  to  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  individuality  and  higher  development  of 
man. 

"And  even,"  mused  Criss,  "were  I  to  choose  such  a  career, 
12 


178  BY  AND  BY. 

and  become  exalted  over  all  others,  even  to  being  regarded  as  a 
divine  founder  or  regenerator  of  such  a  system,  unless  mankind 
■were  the  gainer  thercb}',  it  would  be  as  nought  and  worse  than 
nought ;  for  though  I  win  all  to  myself  by  virtue  of  the  powers 
vested  in  me,  nothing  can  convert  the  loss  of  others  into  my 
gain.  Man  I  am  and  will  be,  and  with  man  I  must  suffer  or 
rejoice.  'Consecrate  my  talents  to  God?'  Even  that  may  be 
but  another  name  for  pride  and  self-seeking. 

"  So  farewell,  oh  Rome  !  who  in  time  long  past  forced  upon 
man  Law,  and  made  him  pay  dearly  for  it — even  his  all  here  ; 
and  in  time  later  forced  upon  him  Dogma,  and  made  him  pay 
for  it  yet  more  dearly — even  his  all  here  and  hereafter — 2)ay 
with  body  and  soul  in  time  and  eternity.  Well  indeed,  doth 
the  Laocoon,  noblest  of  thy  relic-marbles,  represent  Humanity 
struggling  in  thy  once  fatal  toils ! " 

And  now  the  blue  mists  of  the  Mediterranean  and  its  border 
lands  of  sunshine  began  to  disappear,  as  the  moist  south-west 
current^,  coming  up  from  the  restless  Atlantic  bore  him  towards 
the  home  of  the  nox"tli-east  trade  wind  ;  and  his  soul,  still  kept 
open  to  receive  whatever  inflviences  might  pour  into  it  from  the 
surrounding  world  of  spirit,  found  a  new  vision  growing  before 
it.  Tlijs  was  a  vision  of  times  when  men  no  longer  suffered 
themselves  to  be  ruled  through  the  lower  or  more  sensuous  part 
of  themselves,  or  suffered  interest  or  love  to  dim  their  sense  of 
justice  and  truth. 

For  now  Criss's  car  had  drifted  over  the  great  Teuton  father- 
land, where  the  air  was  inter-penetrated  with  pure  and  keen 
intellect,  ever  on  the  alert  to  know  what  was  true,  and  holding 
nought  as  divine — contain  what  it  might  of  beauty,  use,  or  even 
of  goodness — unless  it  put  Truth  first,  and  made  all  else  sub- 
ordinate to  it. 

This  was  so  consonant  to  the  ordinary  tone  of  Criss's  mind, 
that  he  was  surprised  at  the  elation  he  felt  on  coming  into  con- 
tact with  this  new  sphere.  But  he  presently  learnt  to  ascribe 
it  to  the  contrast  which  these  fresh  influences  made  with  those 
of  France  and  Italy,  which  had  so  recently  affected  him.     Not 


BY  AND  BY.  179 

that  he  despised  physical  pleasure.  He  had  too  irmch  happy 
animal  health  in  him  for  that.  Or  failed  to  appreciate  intense- 
ly all  beauty  in  sentiment  and  art.  He  had  too  much  soul  for 
that.  But  the  spiritual  airs  which  emanated  from  Germany, 
found  a  perfect  response  in  his  intellect,  inasmuch  as  they 
encouraged  him  not  only  to  place  Truth  first,  hut  to  reject  as 
intrinsically  hideous  and  pernicious  whatever  in  life,  in  art,  or 
in  religion  was  not  established  upon  a  basis  of  pure  science,  at 
once  verifiable  and  harmonious  with  itself.  "  Here,"  said  Criss, 
"  I  strike  the  key-note  of  the  modern  civilizations." 

And  now,  as  in  search  of  the  fast-sinking  wintry  sun,  he 
rose  liigher  and  higher,  and  was  carried  b}^  tlie  winds  that  came 
from  the  Steppes  of  Tartary  once  more  over  his  own  English 
home,  influences  of  various  kinds  from  far  and  wide,  but  already 
harmoniously  blended  together,  seemed  to  gather  round  him. 
Viewed  through  their  medium,  the  land  of  his  adoption  appeared 
to  him  as  a  vast  digestive  apparatus,  receiving  and  assimilating 
all  things  that  were  cast  into  it,  and  by  virtue  of  its  sound 
constitution,  converting  all  into  good  living  substance.  At  the 
basis  of  the  system  of  thought  now  presented  to  him,  Criss 
found  the  clue  to  the  character  and  history  of  England — the 
courage  to  be  free  and  to  use  her  freedom,  a  courage  founded 
upon  faith  in  the  divine  harmony  of  the  universe,  and  respect 
for  the  rights  of  every  individual  soul. 

Contrasting  the  dominant  idea  of  the  Church  of  the  Emanci- 
l^ation  with  that  of  the  old  media?val  sacerdotalism,  he  saw 
clearly  that  England  owed  all  her  success  in  extricating  herself 
from  the  terrible  dilemmas  of  the  past,  dilemmas  social,  j^olitical, 
and  religious,  to  her  sense  of  equal  justice  alike  to  persons  and 
to  periods.  As  no  individual,  however  great  and  high,  was 
suffered  to  dominate  the  rest ;  so  no  age,  however  great  its 
achievements,  or  sacred  its  traditions,  was  suffered  to  rule 
another  age.  England  had  gained  much  in  advance  on  her 
]iast,  before  she  could  convert  her  National  Church  into  an 
universal  fane,  beneath  whose  dome  every  mind  developed  by 
culture,  could  find  free  expression  for  its  own  perceptions  of 
truth,  and  opportunity  of  submitting  them  to  the  general 
judgment. 


180  BY  AND  BY. 

Cati'hing  sight,  as  he  ghmced  downwards,  of  the  great  city- 
lying  far  below,  and  descrying  in  the  midst  of  its  blaze  of  lights 
the  dim  outline  of  its  cathedral,  Criss  found  himself  thus  apos- 
trophising the  sacred  edifice 

"And  thou,  St.  Paul's,  on  whose  lofty  summit  I  have  been 
wont  to  pause  from  my  flights  through  the  air,  and  alight, 
noblest,  externally,  of  earth's  citadels  of  the  soul,  and,  within, 
gem  of  England's  richest  art, — thou,  St.  Paul's,  core  of  the 
throbbing  heart  of  this  great  city,  thine  is  the  glory  of  symbol- 
ising the  victory  of  this  people  over  man's  worst,  man's  sole 
^nemy,  his  own  fears  of  the  imaginary,  fears  which  banished 
God  from  the  living  world  to  the  remote  past,  and  delivered 
man  over  a  prey  to  the  terrors  of  superstition  ;  fears  which 
magnified  the  spirit  of  evil  until  it  took  many  gods  to  be  a 
match  for  one  devil ;  fears  now  happily  cast  out  by  knowledge, 
and  the  trust  that  comes  of  knowledge. 

"Beneath  thy  capacious  dome,  once  restricted  to  a  name  and 
a  sect,  England's  sons  can  now  meet,  united  in  heart  and 
method,  no  matter  how  diverse  the  conclusions  of  their  intel- 
lect. Not  until  they  found  grace  to  withstand  the  wiles  of 
priests  who  divided,  and  creeds  which  confounded,  and  to  regard 
the  best  human  as  the  most  divine — were  they  adjudged  of 
Providence  worthy  to  complete  and  crown  thee  their  chiefest 
temple.  Greater  even  than  thy  physical  beauty  is  the  moral 
beauty  that  now  surrounds  thee,  St.  Paul's,  at  length,  after  long 
ages,  thus  happily  completed  ! " 

Recalling  the  reproach  anciently  brought  against  England 
as  a  land  of  grumblers,  Criss  saw  in  the  discontent  once  so 
prevalent,  but  the  outcome  of  the  general  yearning  towards  a 
higher  ideal  of  life  and  faith ;  while  in  the  slowness  of  the 
advance  towards  its  realization,  he-  saw  an  illustration  of  the 
national  patience. 

This  triune  combination  of  endowments.  Patience,  Self- 
reliance,  and  a  high  Ideal,  had  he  perceived  in  the  recent 
centuries,  though  often  in  the  dai-k,  ever  been  working  towai-ds 
the  end  now  happily  attained ;  until  it  has  come  that  England 
still  maintains  her  ancient  prerogative  of  teaching  the  nations 


BY   AND  BY.  •  181 

how  to  live ;  of  showing  to  the  world  that  the  Practical  can 
be  lawfully  wedded  to  the  Ideal ;  Work  to  Faith ;  Science  to 
Reverence ;  and  that  the  most  fatal  of  errors  consists  in  the 
attempt  to  divorce  them,  or  to  deny  them  the  fruition  of  their 
proper  affinity. 

And  as  he  thought  of  what  such  Spirit  and  such  Work  had 
done  for  the  world  and  for  England,  and  what  a  power  of  work 
was,  as  Avenil  had  said,  stored  up  in  the  wealth  wherewith  his 
own  hands  Avere  filled,  he  felt  his  spirit  going  out  in  eager 
aspiration  for  some  worthy  end  to  which  he  might  devote  him- 
self, an  end  which  would  involve  the  redemption  of  at  least  a 
portion  of  earth,  or  of  earth's  children,  from  some  inherited 
curse. 

As  thus,  under  the  influence  of  English  airs  and  feelings, 
he  soared  in  thought  towards  the  noblest  aims,  so,  as  if  by  con- 
scious sympathy,  his  car  rose  higher  and  higher  in  the  Empy- 
rean, and  his  thoughts  uttered  themselves,  in  poetic  rhythm  : 
or,  were  they  indeed  voices  that  he  heard  around  him,  as  of  an 
invisible  chorus,  accompanying  with  angelic  gratulations  his 
high-born  resolves  ?  Criss  would  not  gather  up  his  analytic 
faculties  to  inquire  ;  but  left  his  mind  open  for  the  ideas  to 
enter  freely  without  effort  on  his  part,  and  without  seeking  for 
their  source.  Afterwards,  he  might,  if  his  memory  retained 
them,  commit  them  to  writing ;  but  at  the  time  itself,  it  was 
his  wont  to  do  nought  to  break  the  spontaneity  of  their  flow. 
Having  aimed  at  keeping  his  mind  in  tune  with  the  holiest  and 
the  best,  what  need  of  further  effort  to  make  it  produce  sweet 
music  ?  Or  what  else  was  needed  to  win  the  angels  into  sweet 
converse  ?  Nay,  had  he  not  even  but  now  been  rejecting  all 
jiromptings  of  the  lower  parts  of  his  own  nature,  all  temptation 
to  use  for  his  own  gratification  the  manifold  resources  of  earth's 
various  provinces  so  freely  put  at  his  disposal,  and  finally  re- 
solved to  bring  his  own  inmost  into  consonance  with  the 
greatest  good  to  others?  What  wonder,  then,  if  in  the 
access  of  his  ecstasy  it  should  seem  to  him  as  if  the  angelic 
dwellers  in  those  rare  and  sublime  spheres  came  and  ministered 
to  him  ? 


182  '  Br  A  XT)   BY. 

If  Criss  had  doubts,  they  were  soon  resolved,  for  soon  the 
invisible  ohorus  became  visible,  and  his  old  friends  from  the 
ethereal  spheres  flocked  around  him.  And  foremost  among 
them  was  the  tall  angel,  now  no  longer  alone,  but  with  his 
wedded  sunshine  clasping  his  arm,  and  read}'  to  listen  with 
bright  and  arch  intelligence  to  her  beloved's  utterances  as  he 
opened  to  Criss  some  of  the  myteries  of  the  perfect  life. 

"  If  by  Conventionality  you  mean  the  worship  of  the  oiiter- 
most,"  he  said  in  reply  to  Criss,  "we  have  none  such  among 
us ;  at  least,  these  higher  spheres,  in  which  I  and  mine  dwell. 
For  with  us,  all  possess  a  law  of  their  own  inmost,  to  which 
alone  allegiance  is  due.  We  reverence  Matter,  as  that  of  which 
we  and  all  things  are  composed.  We  reverence  sensation  and 
perception,  which  are  faculties  common  to  all.  But  we  adore 
our  own  inmost,  for  that  is  to  each  the  manifestation  of  the 
divine  personality. 

"  Yes,  we  are  affected  by  the  course  of  events  below.  We  do 
not  vinderstand  how  it  comes  about,  but,  somehow,  good  done 
or  thought  on  earth  radiates  or  vibrates  sympathetically  to  us, 
and  draws  us  nearer  to  the  scene  of  it ;  while  we  recede  from 
wilfulness  and  evil. 

"It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  anything  can  subsist  without 
a  physical  basis.  Whatever  exists  is  something,  unless  it  be  a 
mere  effect.  And  whatever  is  something  is  material  and 
actual.  The  spiritual  is  but  an  effect  or  operation  of  the 
material,  even  as  the  emotional  is :  the  diviner  effect  of  an 
entity  already  divine.  For  matter  is  divine  in  its  origin  and 
infinite  capacity  for  development,  involutional  as  well  as  evolu- 
tional. Differences  are  in  degree,  not  in  kind.  There  is  no 
real  without  an  ideal;  no  ideal  without  a  real.  The  most  sub- 
limated among  us  owns  kindred  with  the  grossest  elements  of 
earth,  for  we  have  a  common  basis.  Herein,  doubtless,  consists 
the  secret  of  oiir  mutual  sympathy. 

"The  Supreme  ?  Ah,  who  can  tell !  Even  coxdd  you  pene- 
trate the  abysses  of  yon  flaming  orb,  and  drag  his  secret  forth, 
you  would  be  no  nearer  to  learning  what  the  Supreme  is.  Yet 
by  way  of  illustration  the  sun  can  help  us  somewhat.     Once 


BY  AND  BY.  183 

upon  a  time  the  sun  filled  with  his  physical,  bodily  presence, 
all  the  space  over  which  our  system  now  extends,  and  yet  more, 
uniformly  diffused,  and  homogeneous  in  constitution.  It  was 
the  all,  and  in  all,  and  no  other  personality  or  entity  existed 
therein;  for  it  contained  in  nebulous  potentiality  all  that  you 
and  we  are  or  can  be,  in  body  and  soul. 

"  The  illustration  I  perceive  in  your  thought  is  a  fair  one, 
and  this  shining  cloud  may  be  likened  to  the  spat  discharged 
by  the  oyster  in  clear  water.  Though  to  all  appearance  but  a 
cloud,  it  contains  the  germs  of  the  whole  future  brood.  Artifi- 
cial appliances  enable  you  to  magnify  and  discern  the  young 
creature  existing  in  perfectioff,  though  so  minute.  But  scarce 
any  appliance  short  of  infinite  perception  can  detect  the  capa- 
city for  future  development  lying  hid  in  the  nebulous  cloud  of 
S2)ace. 

"  Well,  this  cloud  contracting  and  changing,  gradually  with- 
drew its  actual  presence  from  the  outermost  portions  of  the  vast 
arena,  depositing  as  it  did  so,  the  materials  for  those  other 
individualities  which  we  now  behold  as  Worlds.  But,  though 
withdrawing  itself  in  one  sense,  its  influences  of  power  and 
attraction,  of  heat  and  light,  still  permeate  and  govern  them 
all  as  beings  distinct,  yet  dependent ;  beings  not  made,  not 
begotten,  but  proceeding.  In  it  and  of  it,  they  live,  and  move, 
and  subsist ;  and  the  intelligences  upon  them,  constituting 
their  flower  and  fruit,  best  fulfil  the  intention  of  their  being 
when  they  acknowledge  their  oneness  with  the  rest  of  the  Uni- 
verse, and  strive  to  fulfil  to  the  utmost  the  laws  which  provide 
for  their  well-being  and  happiness. 

"  You  are  perplexed,  and  know  not  whether  it  is  of  the  sun, 
or  of  the  Supreme,  that  I  speak.  The  Supreme  is  the  Infinite, 
beyond  force,  beyond  mind,  beyond  being,  bej^ond  doing,  beyond 
language,  beyond  ideas ;  while  the  sun,  though  a  complete  indi- 
vidual in  itself,  is  but  one  of  many;  one  member  of  a  great 
family,  a  part  and  not  the  whole.  Remember  that  whatever 
there  is  in  you,  or  in  us,  now,  in  our  present  state,  that,  in 
some  form  or  other,  was  in  the  original  nebula  out  of  which  we 
are  formed,  that  nebula  being  but  a  portion  of  the  infinite, 


184  BY  AND  BY. 

detached  from  the  parent  mass,  and  provided  with  the  capacity 
necessary  to  enable  it  to  evolve  a  perfect  individuality  of  its 
own.  Call  it  sun,  or  call  it  Supreme,  you  must  believe  that 
whatever  exists  consists  of  something,  or  you  make  God  a 
negation.  jVIatter  is  not  contemptible.  It  is  as  the  root  to  the 
flower ;  and  the  flower  of  matter  is  the  soul.  Matter,  therefore, 
is  the  basis  of  spirit.  It  is  the  basis  also  of  duty.  On  yonder 
earth,  to  which  you  belong,  lies  your  highest,  your  sole,  duty  in 
the  present." 

Here  Criss  suddenl}^  found  himself  alone,  but  in  the  presence 
of  a  smile  that  seemed  to  beam  upon  him  and  warm  him  to  the 
heart ;  a  smile  as  from  an  unseen  face ;  until,  as  he  descended 
towards  the  earth,  it  clothed  itself  in  features  which  at  first  he 
took  for  those  of  his  tall  angel  friend's  angel  bride,  and  then 
for  those  of  the  fair  girl  he  had  left  shedding  passionate  tears 
on  the  slopes  of  Atlantika. 

On  approaching  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  examining  the 
configuration  of  the  land,  he  found  that  the  currents  had  wafted 
him  near  to  the  ranges  of  the  Lebanon.  At  this  he  was  greatly 
excited.  Lebanon!  Palestine!  Jerusalem!  the  home  of  his  own 
race  !  Away  then,  quick,  to  the  city  of  his  ancestors :  the  cra- 
dle of  all  the  mid-time  religions! 

"  Ancestors !  Parents  ! "  thought  Criss.  "  Ah,  me  ;  why  is  it 
that  I  have  no  near  kindred  to  call  beloved,  to  j^lease  and  to  be 
proud  of?  Ah,  if  I  could  only  find  some,  however  poor  and 
destitute,  to  share — nay,  to  claim — all  this  wealth,  which  to  me 
is  but  a  burden;  for  if  such  live,  surely  it  is  theirs  rather  than 
mine.  Oh,  if  my  father  still  exists — no  other  parent  can — what 
joy  to  find  him  and  tell  him  that  a  portion,  at  least,  of  her  he 
loved,  still  survives.  I  wonder  why  I  have  never  before  yearned 
towards  an  earthly  parent;  least  of  all  towards  an  earthly 
father.  Of  a  possible  mother  I  have  sometimes  thought  with 
longing,  but  never  of  a  father,  save  of  the  supreme  Father  of 
all.  Can  it  be  that  the  very  absence  of  the  tender  relations  of 
humanity  has  served  to  throw  me  more  into  the  arms  of  an 


7ir  AND  BY.  185 

ideal  and  spiritual  father ;  or  that  in  kindness  I  have  been 
compensated  for  the  loss?  It  has  not  been  unknown  before 
that  one  depriv^ed  of  sweet  parental  reciprocities,  has  been 
caught  up,  as  it  were,  in  spirit,  and  made  one  with  the  divine 
soul  of  all ;  driven  by  the  absence  of  the  longed-for  real,  with 
sweet  compulsion  to  the  ideal.  I  am  sure  that  my  father  must 
have  been  noble  of  spirit.  At  least,  I  will  endeavor  so  to  live, 
that,  be  he  noble  as  he  might,  I  shall  not  be  unworthy  of  him. 
Now  to  descend  into  Jerusalem." 


CHAPTER  III. 

In  a  city  of  the  importance  and  extent  of  Jerusalem,  an 
arrival,  whether  by  land  or  air,  attracted  no  attention.  Alight- 
ing in  the  courtyard  of  what  he  perceived  to  be  one  of  the 
principal  hotels,  the  Royal  Arab,  which  he  selected  on  reading 
its  sign  from  aloft,  as  likely  by  its  name  to  be  frequented  by 
Central  Africans,  Criss  was  presently  installed  in  quarters 
deemed  sufficiently  luxurious  for  a  young  man  travelling  alone 
in  an  aeromotive.  He  dined  by  himself  in  the  public  salon, 
and  during  his  meal  read  tlie  day's  papers.  These,  he  found, 
were  much  taken  up  with  the  revolution  in  Bornou,  and  ex- 
pressed fears  that  it  seemed  likely  to  extend  through  Soudan, 
even  to  Abyssinia,  hitherto  reckoned  an  invincibly  conservative 
part  of  the  Empire,  on  account  of  its  being  the  primary  source 
and  foundation  of  the  Imperial  family  and  system. 

But  what  most  excited  his  interest,  was  the  account  of  an 
interview  which  had  taken  place  on  the  previous  evening 
between  the  fugitive  prince  and  the  Soudan  bondholders'  com- 
mittee, in  which  much  bitterness  had  been  expressed  on  both 
sides  towards  the  intervening  State  of  Egj'pt,  as  the  secret 
fosterer  of  the  insurrection.  The  Jewish  journals,  too,  one  and 
all,  seemed  to  have  jumped  at  an  opportunity  for  exhibiting  the 
bitterness  still  remaining  from  the  ancient  feud  between  Israel 


186  BY  AND  BY. 

and  Egypt.  As  the  press  of  Jerusalem  was  known  to  be 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  capitalists,  it  was  easy  for  those 
who  were  familiar  with  local  politics,  to  guess  that  some  special 
and  definite  purpose  lay  behind  this  new  outburst  of  animosity. 
What  that  purpose  might  be,  Criss  knew  not,  but  he  knew  that 
the  allied  states  of  Palestine  and  Soudan  were  restrained  from 
joining  in  an  attack  upon  Egypt  only  by  the  fact  that  Egypt 
was  a  member  of  the  European  confederacy,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  the  grand  council  had  committed  no  fault  worthy  to  justify 
an  appeal  to  arms.  Egypt  might  be  a  bad  neighbor,  but  the 
law  cannot  be  invoked  to  transform  such  into  good  neighbors, 
in  national,  any  more  than  in  individual  life.  A  similar  diffi- 
culty arose  many  years  ago,  on  the  abolition  of  duelling  among 
l^rivate  persons.  Ill-conditioned  people  ventured  upon  conduct 
from  which  they  had  previously  been  restrained  by  fear  of  the 
consequences.  Egypt  knew  that  she  could  not  be  called  to 
account  for  mere  churlishness.  For  the  law  to  interfere,  she 
must  behave  very  much  worse  than  she  had  yet  done. 

Finding  himself  in  the  same  city  with  the  crown  prince  of 
Abyssinia — for  such  was  the  title  of  the  heir  to  the  throne — Criss 
became  desirous  of  making  his  acquaintance,  but  without  re- 
vealing himself.  He  perceived  that  his  accidental  connection 
with  the  late  Emperor,  and  possession  of  the  sacred  gems,  to 
sa}'  nothing  of  the  mysterious  link  apparently  existing  between 
their  families,  placed  him  in  a  position  to  exert  considerable 
influence  ;  but  he  felt  that  to  be  able  to  use  that  influence  for 
good,  he  must  retain  his  secret  until  some  supreme  and  fitting 
crisis  for  its  revelation. 

He  was  thus  in  some  difficulty  ;  for  he  could  not  seek  a  formal 
introduction  without  giving  a  sufficient  reason  ;  and  to  give  as 
a  reason  his  meeting  with  the  prince's  father,  would  be  to  ex- 
pose himself  to  questionings  respecting  the  property  the  Em- 
peror had  carried  off  in  his  flight,  and  committed  to  Criss'scare, 
as  already  related.  Moreover  Criss  was  ignorant  whether  the 
knowledge  the  Emperor  had  shown  of  his  name,  as  owner  of 
the  diamonds,  was  shared  by  the  prince,  or  any  of  the  Jewish 
upholders  of  his  crown. 


BT  AND  BY.  .  187 

This  last  consideration  led  liim  to  suppress  his  given  name 
of  Christmas,  and  enter  himself  in  the  hotel  book  simply  as 
Mr.  Carol,  of  London.  He  would  learn  the  character  and  pros- 
pects of  the  prince  before  committing  himself  in  any  way  to 
him.  But  how,  then,  was  he  to  obtain  the  desired  introduc- 
tion ? 

After  much  cogitation,  he  bethought  himself  of  his  friends 
at  Atlantika,  Nannie  and  her  relatives,  the  Hazeltines  ;  and  he 
decided  that  he  would  approach  the  prince  for  the  purpose  of 
learning  his  opinion  respecting  the  possible  danger  to  them 
through  the  known  hostility  of  the  insurgents.  However,  it 
was  reserved  for  accident  to  do  what  he  required  without  his 
putting  himself  forward  in  any  way. 

Criss  had  not  ordered  any  coffee  after  his  dinner;  neverthe- 
less, the  waiter  brought  him  some.  Immersed  in  his  reflec- 
tions, Criss  did  not  perceive  that  he  had  got  what  he  had  not 
ordered,  until  the  waiter  came  and  with  many  apologies  took  it 
away  again,  saying  he  had  brought  it  by  mistake :  it  was  or- 
dered by  the  other  gentleman. 

Taking  no  notice  of  the  incident,  Criss  continued  to  reflect, 
until  recalled  by  some  conversation  at  a  neighboring  table,  the 
only  one  besides  his  own  now  occupied,  for  the  rest  of  the 
diners  had  gone  out  to  smoke  in  the  verandah. 

"  I  should  like  to  see  the  gentleman  the  man  took  for  me  and 
gave  my  coffee  to,"  said  the  occupant  of  the  other  table  in  a  tone 
of  more  asperity,  it  struck  Criss,  than  the  circumstances  Avar- 
ranted  ;  a  tone,  apparently,  of  one  not  accustomed  to  be  crossed. 

"He  sits  yonder,  j'our  highness,"  replied  the  master  of  the 
house,  who  had  come  in  person  to  explain  the  waiter's  mistake, 
while  the  attendants  remained  standing  in  a  group  near  the 
entrance  to  the  salon,  evidently,  now  that  Criss  had  looked  up 
to  see  what  was  going  on,  curiously  examining  the  two  visitors. 

The  stranger  looked  towards  Criss,  and  their  eyes  met  in  a 
steady  scrutinizing  gaze. 

Presently  the  other  said,  manifestly  with  the  design  of  being 
overheard, — 


188  ^y  ^-ZVD  BY. 

"  Have  you  apologized  to  that  gentleman  for  your  mistake  ? 
No  ?     Then  I  will  do  so." 

And  getting  up  he  iipproached  Criss  with  an  air  of  mingled 
dignity  and  defeix'nce. 

"  The  servants,  in  excuse  for  the  blunder  they  have  made 
ahout  our  coffee,  plead  a  resemblance  between  us,  which  they 
declare  to  be  extraordinary.  But  perhaps  my  Arabic  speech  is 
lost  upon  you  ?  " 

Criss  rose  as  the  stranger  addressed  him.  The  two  young 
men  fastened  their  eyes  intently  upon  each  other.  The  group 
of  attendants  involuntarily  drew  near.  The  resemblance  in 
face,  figure,  and  voice,  was  so  extraordinary  as  to  strike  both 
the  bystanders  and  the  young  men  themselves.  Criss,  however, 
thanks  to  the  Greek  infusion  in  his  blood,  was  of  a  fairer  com- 
plexion, and  a  more  refined  and  spiritual  expression.  Loth 
Avere  dressed  in  the  prevailing  costume  of  Europe. 

"  No  apology  is  necessary,"  answered  Criss,  in  the  same  lan- 
guage, "  unless  it  be  for  the  liberty  I  have  taken  in  bearing  any 
likeness  to  you.  But  pray  do  not  remain  standing.  1  am  a 
stranger,  a  traveller  just  arrived,  and  shall  be  happy  to  take 
some  coffee  in  your  conqjanj^" 

"A  stranger?  a  traveller?  and  from  where  may  I  ask?" 
said  the  other  with  a  curious  eagerness,  taking  the  proffered 
seat  at  Criss's  table. 

"  From  England,  my  home.  But  I  presume,  by  your  address- 
ing me  in  Arabic,  that  I  am  not  speaking  to  one  of  my  own 
country  ?  " 

"No,  but  to  one  who  admires  and  respects  your  country," 
said  the  stranger.  "I  am  an  Abyssinian  by  descent,  and,  like 
yourself,  a  stranger  and  a  traveller,  having  lately  left  my  own 
land  in  consequence  of  the  troubles  there.  You,  probably,  feel 
little  interest  in  tliem.  It  seems  strange,  though,  that  tAVO 
persons  of  such  different  origin  should  be  sufficiently  alike  to 
be  mistaken  for  each  other." 

Criss  remarked  that  he  believed  he  had  some  oriental  and 
southern  blood  in  him,  which  might  account  for  the  likeness ; 
and  added  that  he  took  a  great  interest  in  Central  African  pol- 


JBY   AND  BY.  189 

itics,  anl  that  not  merely  because  he  had  friends  settled  there,  for 
Avhose  safety  he  was  concerned,  but  because  he  had  himself  seen 
a  little  of  the  country,  and  conceived  a  respect  for  the  charac- 
ter of  its  royal  family. 

"By  3^our  general  look  and  mode  of  speech,  I  should  certainly 
have  taken  you  for  one  of  my  own  people,"  returned  the  other, 
in  terms  which  Criss  recognized  as  almost  identical  with  those 
which  the  late  Emperor  had  used  to  him. 

The  stranger  went  on  to  ask  him  about  his  calling  or  station, 
and  Criss  expressed  himself  as  being  often  amused  at  being 
taken  for  a  courier,  as  his  fancy  for  aerial  yachting — a  taste  not 
uncommon  among  English  gentlemen — caused  to  be  the  case ; 
and  added  that  the  last  occasion  on  which  this  occurred  was  in 
passing  over  Bournou  during  the  outbreak  of  the  insurrection, 
when  he  had  given  cause  for  the  supposition  by  stopping  over 
the  post  office  and  letting  down  a  line  for  mails. 

"  And  since  that  where  have  you  been  ?  " 

''With  my  friends  in  England,"  said  Criss  ;  "but  I  ought  to 
introduce  myself  in  form.  I  am  an  Englishman,  on  an  aerial 
cruise.  My  home  is  London  ;  my  name  Carol."  And  Criss 
colored  a  little,  conscious  that  the  unwonted  candor  of  his  ad- 
vances was  contrived  in  order  to  get  the  other  to  declare  him- 
self. 

"  I,  too,  am  a  traveller  and  a  gentleman,"  said  the  stranger, 
"  and  I  have  already  saicf  that  I  belong  to  Soudan,  and  am  here 
through  family  and  political  misfortunes.  Excuse  me  for  say- 
ing," he  continued  with  a  slight  smile,  "  that  you  appear  to  me 
to  be  one  who  has  never  experienced  a  sense  of  misfoi'tune. 
But  I  should  not  therefore  judge  you  as  incapable  of  sympa- 
thy." 

"  Misfortune  of  my  own,"  returned  Criss,  with  emphasis, 
"I  have  never  known.  Misfortune  of  others  it  is  my  greatest 
happiness  to  sympathize  with,  and,  if  possible,  to  alleviate." 

"  You,  probabh',  have  never  lost  parent,  place,  or  fortune.  I 
have  lost  all  three.     At  least  I  fear  the  worst  for  the  first." 

"  Do  you  mind  telling  me  all  ? "  said  Criss,  already  pre- 
possessed   in    the    stranger's    favor,    and    diAaning    that     the 


190  BY  AND  BY. 

other  was  only  desirous  to  be  certain  that  his  confidence  would 
not  be  abused.  "  Fortune  and  place  are  not  irrecoverable  at 
your — at  our  age ;  but  a  parent — a  father — ah !  that  is  a  bless- 
ing I  have  never  known.  But  you  speak  of  his  fate  as  if  still 
in  suspense." 

"  I  am  already  known  to  too  many  in  Jerusalem,"  said  the 
stranger,  "  for  it  to  be  a  secret  much  longer,  and  I  am  predis- 
posed to  give  you  my  full  confidence.  It  is  rare  to  meet  an 
English  gentleman  who  has  visited  my  capital.  If  my  father 
be  living,  I  am  Crown  Prince  of  Abyssinia ;  if  he  be  dead,  I 
am,  nominally  at  least,  Emperor  of  Soudan  and  Abyssinia." 

At  this  Criss  rose,  and  respectfully  taking  the  hand  of  the 
stranger,  was  about  to  touch  it  with  his  lips  ;  but  the  prince 
withdrew  it,  saying : 

"  Nay,  such  homage  is  with  us  reserved  for  the  Emperor  him- 
self.    I  hope,  though  almost  against  hope,  that  he  still  lives." 

Regaining  possession  of  his  hand,  Criss  kissed  it  solemnly, 
saying  : 

"  Emj)eror  of  Soudan  and  Abyssinia,  I  proffer  the  homage 
that  is  your  due.     Your  father,  the  late  Emperor,  is  no  more  ! " 

"  You  speak  positively  !     How  can  you  know  this  ?  " 

"  The  Emperor  escaped,  wounded  and  alone,  in  a  flying 
machine.  Cro.ssing  the  Sahara  to  Algiers,  he  committed  him- 
self to  the  care  of  the  British  Minister  there.  The  Minister 
and  his  physician  did  their  best  to  save  him.  He  died  of  his 
wounds  two  days  before  Christmas.  I  was  there  Avhen  he 
arrived,  and  knew  the  fact.  I  knew  who  he  was,  for  he  gave 
me  his  confidence  as  I  tended  him.  The  Minister  will  certify 
it  to  you  whenever  you  afford  him  the  opportunity." 

"Alone!  wounded!  My  poor  father!  AYere  you  present 
when  he  died  ?  " 

"  No  ;  immensely  to  my  regret,  I  was  compelled  to  be  in 
England  on  that  very  day.  But  I  was  with  him  until  the  latest 
possible  moment,  and  at  his  request  had  promised  to  return  the 
instant  I  was  free.  I  seemed  to  have  won  his  confidence.  He 
remarked  my  resemblance  to  his  family.  But  I  ncA^er  saw  him 
again.     The  Minister  sent  to  inform  me  of  his  death." 


BY  AND  BY.  191 

"  It  is  scarcely  credible  that  he  should  have  guided  himself 
so  far  in  safety,  even  had  he  not  been  wounded.  But  your 
account  of  his  escape  tallies  with  the  fact  that  he  was  last  seen 
entering  the  tower  where  the  crown  jewels  are  kept,  for  I  know 
that  there  was  an  old  flying  machine  in  a  chamber  at  the  top, 
kept  there  as  a  curiosity,  I  supposed.  But  now  it  seems  as  if 
he  had  a  purpose  in  keeping  it  there.  Yet  I  never  was  led  to 
think  he  anticipated  revolution.  How  strange  is  this  accidental 
meeting  with  one  able  to  give  such  information  ! " 

"As  strange,"  said  Criss,  "as  the  coincidence  of  my  lighting 
upon  this  particular  country  and  city,  and  entering  this  par- 
ticular hotel,  at  the  moment  of  your  being  here.  Yet  all  these 
coincidences  would  have  led  to  nothing  but  for  the  servant's 
mistake  about  the  coffee." 

"And  that,  again,"  remarked  the  prince,  "would  not  have 
occurred  but  for  the  likeness  between  us.  But  in  what  way, 
may  I  ask,  is  your  arrival  here  accidental  ?  Did  you  not  mean 
to  come  to  Jerusalem  ?  " 

Then  Criss  told  him  of  his  love  for  aerial  navigation,  and 
how  that,  being  free  from  the  necessity  of  working  for  his 
living,  he  spent  much  time  in  travelling.  That  on  this  par- 
ticular occasion,  having  recently  come  of  age,  he  had  ascended 
in  his  car,  in  order  to  meditate  on  the  best  way  of  disposing  of 
his  life  so  as  to  be  most  useful  in  the  world ;  and  that,  after 
being  many  hours  at  a  great  height  in  the  air,  carried  about  at 
will  by  the  currents,  he  found,  on  returning  to  the  earth,  that 
he  was  close  to  Jerusalem,  and  having,  as  he  believed,  some 
Jewish  blood  in  him,  he  resolved  to  visit  the  ancient  capital  of 
his  race. 

The  prince  took  a  lively  interest  in  his  recital,  and  said  he 
envied  him  the  liberty  he  turned  to  such  good  account.  "  But 
what,"  he  asked,  "is  the  resolve  to  which  you  came  ?" 

"  Nothing  very  definite,  I  fear,"  said  Criss,  "  beyond  a  reso- 
lution to  do  my  best." 

"What  blood  have  you  in  you  besides  Jewish  ?  "  asked  the 
prince,  somewhat  abruptly. 

"  Mostly  Greek,  I  believe,"  was  the  answ  er. 


192  BY  AND  BY. 

"  No  Eg3'ptian,  or  anything  to  lead  you  to  sympathise  with 
Egypt?" 

"  None  whatever.  Next  to  the  land  of  my  home,  my  sym- 
pathies are  all  with  the  two  races  I  have  named." 

"I  am  glad  to  think  there  is  no  barrier  to  your  serving  me. 
I  consider  I  have  a  claim,  since  you  served  my  father." 

"  I  will  serve  you  with  my  whole  heart,"  said  Criss,  "  pro- 
vided I  serve  mankind  by  doing  so." 

"  I  recognize  the  propriety  of  the  reservation.  It  proves 
your  English  training.  I  have  no  vocation  to  be  a  tyrant ;  at 
least,  I  think  not.  But  those  Egyptians  ought  to  be  punished. 
They  are  the  cause  of  my  troubles  now,  as  they  have  been  of 
all  my  country's  troubles  for  the  last  five  or  six  thousand 
years." 

And,  started  on  the  topic  which  constituted  a  deep  sore  in 
his  mind,  he  rapidly  recounted  the  wrongs  done  to  Abyssinia 
by  Egypt,  the  catalogue  of  which  he  declared  to  be  treasured 
up  in  the  memories  of  all  good  and  educated  Abyssiniaps.  And 
thus,  talking  far  into  the  night,  he  told  Criss  how,  in  times 
long  gone  by,  the  mountain  strongholds  of  his  country  had 
been  a  refuge  for  the  kings  of  Egypt  when  driven  out  of  their 
own  land  by  the  Bedouin  Hyksos  ;  and  how  the  shepherd  kings 
in  their  turn  had  been  driven  out  when,  refreshed  and  regener- 
ated in  tlieir  highland  retreat,  the  successors  of  the  refugee 
Pharaohs  had  descended  with  an  army  into  Egypt,  and  re- 
covered the  land  from  the  Arab  invaders.  How  that  these 
kings,  again,  had  sought  universal  dominion,  and  overrun  the 
workl,  from  the  Indus  to  the  Niger ;  in  their  ingratitude  enslav- 
ing Soudan  itself,  which  had  proved  so  good  a  friend  to  them 
in  their  adversity.  And  how  Soudan,  rebelling,  at  length  forced 
Egypt  to  acknowledge  its  independence.  Then  he  told  him  how, 
reinforced  by  the  Greeks,  Egypt,  under  Psammiticus,  had  once 
more  forced  its  way  even  to  the  Nubian  Meroe,  when  it  was 
compelled  to  give  up  the  contest,  and  retire  to  its  own  limits. 

"  Its  own,  do  I  say  ?  "  he  exclaimed  with  vivacity.  "  Egypt 
has  nothing  of  its  own  ;  not  even  the  soil  of  its  land.  Were  it 
not  for  the  sediment  which  the  Blue  Nile  has  fot  myriads  of 


BY  AND  BY.  193 

ages  been  carrying  down  from  our  mountains,  Egypt  would  have 
no  geographical  existence.  It  would  be  but  a  patch  of  the 
sandy  desert.  It  is  to  the  Nile  that  flows,  clear  and  bright, 
from  the  great  lakes  far  to  the  south,  and  to  the  Nile  that  we 
yearly  load  with  rich  earth,  that  this  ungrateful  land  owes  all 
it  ever  possessed,  even  to  its  own  existence.  And  now  it  re- 
fuses us  a  transit  for  our  goods  through  its  canal,  except  at  an 
exorbitant  cost,  and  will  not  let  us  construct  a  second  one.  It 
refuses  us  leave  to  make  a  railway  through  its  worthless  plains, 
but  forces  us  to  carry  our  produce  by  ferry  across  the  Red  Sea, 
and  transport  it  by  railway  through  Arabia  to  the  Persian 
Gulf,  before  it  can  reach  the  Mediterranean  ;  for  even  this  is 
cheaper  than  the  transit  through  Egypt.  Then,  by  means  of 
its  agents,  it  fosters  seditions  and  revolution  in  our  country. 
The  Jews,  too,  hate  it,  even  more,  if  possible,  than  we  do. 
From  the  days  when  their  ancestors  were  enslaved  by  it,  and 
tlu'  days  when  it  cut  down  the  forests  of  Lebanon  to  build  the 
navy  wherewith  to  conquer  India  and  the  Mediterranean,  to 
the  days  when  the  independence  and  prosperity  of  Judsea  are 
assured  in  spite  of  its  utmost  exertions,  the  Jews  hate  it,  even 
as  the  people  of  Islam  ever  hated  the  Jews.  Why,  Egypt  levies 
high  toll  upon  every  item  of  the  wealth  that  pours  through  it 
into  Europe,  from  the  rich  provinces  of  Madagascar  and  East- 
ern Africa,  or  to  them  from  Europe.  Believe  me,  nothing  Init 
the  fear  of  the  Confederacy  of  Nations  has  kept  us  from  destroy- 
ing Egypt  by  force  of  arms. 

"  Oh,  if  ever  I  am  restored  to  power  I  shall  take  care  that  it 
be  not  again  endangered  by  this  ungrateful  people  !  The  Nile 
is  ours.  Every  drop  of  its  water,  every  grain  of  its  fertilizing 
sediment,  comes  to  them  from  us  ;  for  they  have  no  single 
stream  of  their  own — no  soil  but  barren  sand.  Let  them  be- 
ware !     Vengeance  will  not  tarry  for  ever  ! " 


13 


lOi  BY  AXD  BY. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


The  first  portion  of  that  night,  after  parting  from  his  new 
friend,  was  passed  by  Criss  in  that  anxious  meditation  which 
possesses  so  much  in  common  with  earnest  prayer ;  the  latter 
part,  in  the  quiet  sleep  which  was  habitual  to  him.  But  it  was 
only  when  his  mind  had  attained  the  goal  of  resolve  that  his 
body  sank  into  the  repose  of  sleep.  Could  it  be  that  in  this 
young  and  uncrowned  Emperor  he  had  found  his  mission, 
and  perhaps  his  relative,  sole  upon  earth  ?  The  thought 
brought  no  joy  to  him,  save  in  so  far  as  it  indicated  a  duty  to 
be  fulfilled,  and  a  subject  worthy  of  affection.  What  did 
trouble  Criss  was  the  frame  of  mind  which  misfortune  seemed 
to  have  evoked  in  the  prince.  He  could  not  conceive  of  him- 
self as  breathing  out  threatenings  and  slaughter  against  any  in- 
dividual, under  any  circumstances.  Much  less  could  he  com- 
prehend the  mood  that  personified  a  whole  peeple,  and  sought 
to  inflict  vengeance  upon  them  as  upon  a  personal  foe.  Surely, 
if  no  other  duty  presented  itself  to  him,  to  mitigate  the  im- 
perial ferocit}'  was  a  duty  worthy  of  all  his  solicitude.  Criss 
felt  that  he  was  not  altogether  powerless  to  promote  his  restora- 
tion. Could  the  prince  by  such  agency  be  restored  to  his 
throne  a  better  man,  nations  would  be  the  better  for  Criss 
having  lived. 

The  morning's  telegraphic  intelligence  from  the  revolted 
capital,  gave  a  new  direction  to  Criss's  thoughts.  The  insur- 
gent government  was  determined  to  jjunish  the  foreign  settlers 
for  their  sympathy  with  the  late  dynasty,  and  coldness  towards 
tlie  new  regime;  and  an  expedition  was  to  start  at  once  for  the 
wealthy  settlements  of  the  whites  in  the  mountains.  Atlan- 
tika,  as  the  leading  district,  was  to  be  the  first  to  suffer. 

Criss's  eyes  became  dimmed  as  he  beheld  in  imagination  the 
fair  regions  he  had  so  lately  visited,  ravaged  by  war,  their 
smiling  homesteads  blackened  by  fire  and  stained  with  blood, 


BY  AND  BY.  195 

and  their  happj,   prosperous  occupants Ah  ! — and  here  a 

pang  shot  through  him  as  he  thought  of  Nannie,  the  pas- 
sionate, wayward  Kannie:  she  of  the  sunny  smile  and  April 
eyes,  who  resembled  the  fairest  angel  of  his  sweetest  visions, — 
Nannie  in  danger,  perchance  a  fugitive,  alone  and  foodless, 
amid  rough  mountains  and  horrid  infested  woods,  her  wealth 
of  golden  hair  streaming  behind  her  as  on  bleeding  feet  she 
fled  fi'om  barbarous  negro  ravishers,  and  seeing  no  salvation 
on  earth,  gazing  with  wild  looks  into  heaven  as  if  thence 
only,  even  as  once  before,  a  deliverer  might  come.  And  shall 
she  look  in  vain  ?  No !  thundered  the  heart  of  Criss,  as, 
starting  from  the  trance  in  which  he  seemed  to  have  seen 
all  these  things  as  vividly  as  with  his  bodily  eyes,  he  rose  and 
hastened  to  prepare  for  an  immediate  start  to  Soudan. 

His  preparations  consisted  in  paying  his  hotel  bill,  and  dis- 
patching a  telegram  to  Avenil,  begging  him  to  back  with 
l^romptest  endeavor  any  movement  of  the  Council  of  Confedera- 
ted Nations  for  saving  the  European  settlers  in  Central  Africa 
from  the  destruction  with  which  they  were  menaced  by  the  in- 
surgents of  Bornou,  whither  he  was  now  proceeding.  On 
leaving  the  writing-room  after  despatching  his  message,  he 
found  himself  running  against  his  acquaintance  of  the  previous 
evening,  of  whose  existence  he  had  for  the  moment  become 
oblivious. 

"  Forgotten  me  already  ?  "  said  the  prince.  "  You  look  as 
absorbed  in  your  thoughts  as  if  you  too  had  a  kingdom  to 
recover." 

"  Your  highness  will  pardon  me,"  returned  Criss.  "  The 
news  from  Bornou  is  bad  for  my  countrymen.  I  am  starting 
for  the  hills,  to  see  if  I  can  aid  my  friends.  I  have  little  doubt 
of  being  able  to  return  in  a  few  days, — probably  three  or  four, 
— and  then  I  shall  be  at  your  highness's  service,  for  any  good 
that  we  can  do  together."  And  Criss  put  a  marked  emphasis 
on  the  word  good. 

The  prince  gazed  on  him  with  a  strange  and  almost  troubled 
look,  but  did  not  immediately  speak.  As  Criss  divined,  his 
thoughts  were  apologetic,  for  presently  he  said, — 


1%  BF  AND  BY. 

"Ah,  that  good,  cool  England  has  given  you  the  discipline  that 
is  very  difficult  of  acquirement  in  our  ardent  Soudan.  .  I  think 
that  I  must  have  an  English  counsellor, — that  is,  when  I  am 
restored.  But  how  long  will  it  take  you  to  get  there  ?  and 
what  do  you  expect  to  do  alone  ?  I  shall  be  very  sorry  to  lose 
you  again  so  soon.  I  could  wish  you  to  remain  by  me,  for  I 
feel  strangely  drawn  towards  you.  Do  you  know  what  will 
constitute  your  chief  danger  if  taken  by  the  rebels  ?  " 

Criss  shook  his  head. 

"  Your  resemblance  to  me.  I  see  it  more  strongly  to-day  even 
than  last  night.  But  you  are  the  handsomer  of  the  two.  That 
Greek  dash  has  done  you  a  good  turn.  And  I  suspect  you  are 
the  better  of  the  two.  You  have  been  improved.  I  claim  only 
to  be  improvable." 

"  Show  yourself  so,  and  I  shall  love  you  and  serve  you  truly," 
said  Criss,  his  eyes  beaming  on  the  prince  with  an  ineffable 
tenderness.  "  Show  yourseK  so,  and  you  will  have  no  cause  to 
regret  your  present  misfortunes,  be  they  temporary  or  not." 

"  You  speak  to  me  as  equal  to  equal.  Pray  does  every  Eng- 
lishman hold  himself  a  king  ?  " 

"  Many  are  more  than  kings,  for  the}'-  are  superior  to  all  dic- 
tation, save  that  of  their  own  consciences.  Is  there  aught  of 
commission  that  your  royal  highness  desires  to  entrust  to  me?  " 

'■'  My  friends  are  organizing  a  force  to  support  nje,"  returned 
the  prince.  "  The  only  question  is  whether  I  ought  to  return 
and  place  myself  at  their  head.  They  advise  delay  until  they 
are  stronger.  I  wish  to  do  what  is  best  for  the  country  and  the 
dynasty.  This  very  day  I  hold  a  conference  with  the  bond- 
holders' committee  on  the  subject.  Otherwise  I  should  be 
inclined  to  beg  a  passage  with  you.  Could  j^ou  take  me  in  your 
car  ?  " 

Criss  was  startled  by  the  singularity  of  the  coincidence,  by 
which  the  son  sought  to  return  in  the  same  conveyance  which 
had  aided  the  father's  flight.     But  he  only  said, — 

"  Best  wait  my  return.  I  will  tell  you  exactly  how  affairs 
stand.     For  the  present,  farewell." 

The  prince  insisted  on  seeing  him  off.     On  beholding  the 


BY  AND  BY.  197 

Ariel,  he  exclaimed  warmly  in  praise  of  its  exquisite  combina- 
tion of  diminutiveness,  strength  and  elegance. 

"  Surely  it  is  unsurpassed,"  he  said. 

"  It  is  unequalled,"  replied  Criss ;  and  was  about  to  start, 
when  the  prince  said, — 

"  Have  you  any  arms  ?  " 

"  None ;  only  instruments  and  tools  to  meet  various  emer- 
gencies. I  hate  the  idea  of  personal  violence,  and  cannot 
imagine  myself  having  recourse  to  it  under  any  circumstances, 
not  even  in  self-defence." 

"  That  is  because  you  have  always  lived  in  civilized  and 
peaceful  lands.  Now  you  are  going  into  barbarism  and  danger. 
People  who  behave  as  wild  beasts  must  be  treated  as  such. 
But  whether  as  a  weapon,  or  as  a  remembrance  of  me,  pray 
accept  and  wear  this  pistol,  at  least  until  we  meet  again.  If 
not  for  yourself,  you  may  need  it  for  others." 

The  last  remark  decided  Criss,  and  buckling  round  him  the 
weapon,  which  was  an  explosive  multiplier  of  the  finest  make 
and  utmost  potency,  he  entered  his  car.  As  he  was  quitting 
the  ground,  a  thought  struck  him,  and  he  said  to  the  prince, — 

"  Should  it  be  needful  for  you  to  return,  and  I  be  prevented 
from  coming  for  you,  will  you  entrust  yourself  to  the  agent  I 
purpose  to  employ  ?  " 

"  I  will  trust  you  and  your  agent  implicitly,"  said  the  prince, 
"  Only  let  me  know  the  situation,  before  I  decide  upon  return- 
ing. The  bondholders  here  have  a  claim  to  influence  my  move- 
ments." 

Mounted  aloft,  Criss  referred  to  his  chart,  his  compass,  and 
his  chronometer. 

"Nearly  thirty  degrees  south-west,  and  now  nine  A.  M.  At 
the  rate  of  two  degrees  an  hour,  I  shall  not  reach  Yolo  until 
midnight.  There  is  no  twilight  there,  and  I  must  arrive  before 
dark,  if  possible.  Now  to  see  the  direction  and  ^Jrobable  force 
of  the  winds."  And  he  consulted  his  chart  of  atmospheric  cur- 
rents. 

To  his  great  satisfaction  he  found  that  by  flying  at  a  certain 


198  BY  AND  BY. 

elevation,  he  would  have  the  aid  of  a  north-east  current,  which 
at  that  season  of  the  year  blew  steadily  and  strongly. 

Referring  to  his  barometer,  he  ascended  to  the  requisite 
height,  where,  putting  on  a  high  speed,  he  travelled  in  his 
course  for  an  hour.  He  then  took  observations  to  ascertain  the 
distance  he  had  covered.  The  movements  of  the  air  at  such 
altitudes  are  not  to  be  judged  by  the  corresponding  movements 
called  winds  below.  Beyond  the  reach  of  retardation  by  fric- 
tion with  the  earth's  surface,  the  great  currents  aloft  sweep 
along  unimjieded  at  rates  which  here  would  make  hurricane 
and  disaster. 

"  Four  degrees  in  the  hour,"  said  Criss,  joyously.  "  Oh,  cur- 
rent, only  hold  thus,  and  before  sundown-  the  goal  will  be  in 
sight. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ox  the  eve  of  the  day  which  saw  Criss  hasting  with  all  speed 
to  the  succor  of  his  friends,  were  held  two  councils  of  war.  One 
in  the  Bornou  capital  by  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection.  The 
other  by  fugitive  planters  from  the  white  settlements,  high  up 
on  the  slopes  of  Atlantika,  where,  in  a  natural  fortress  of  rocks, 
camp  fires  were  kept  burning  to  scare  off  wild  beasts,  and 
temper  the  keen  mountain  air  for  the  women  and  children  who 
crowded,  scared,  around  them.  Xow  that  the  trial  was  come, 
the  young  women  who  had  been  so  eager  to  add  military  practice 
to  their  other  accomplishments,  found  their  hearts  fail  them, 
and  this  so  utterly  that  they  quite  forgot  to  resent  the  cool 
matter-of-course  way  in  which  the  men  left  them  entirely  out 
of  their  calculations  in  the  measures  they  adopted  for  defence. 
Curiously  enough,  somehow,  the  men  did  not  think  the  worse 
of  the  other  sex  for  thus  vindicating  itself.  For  no  reproaches 
passed  between  them  on  the  subject. 

It  was  known  in  the  mountain  that  the   insurgent   forces 


BY  AND  BY.  109 

might  be  expected  at  any  hour.  Of  a  prolonged  resistance  the 
whites  were  hopeless.  They  relied  mainly  upon  the  material 
aid,  or  threats  equally  efficacious,  of  the  Council  of  Confederated 
Nations,  to  which  they  had  dispatched  an  urgent  appeal  by 
telegraph.  The  Council  not  being  in  session,  it  had  to  be 
specially  summoned.  This  had  caused  delay.  When  met,  it 
acted  with  the  utmost  promptitude  and  energy  ;  for  it  dispatched 
a  powerful  aerial  squadron  to  Bornou,  with  instructions  to 
rescue  or  avenge  the  settlers,  and  destroy  the  capital  unless  the 
leaders  of  the  revolution  guaranteed  the  liberty,  lives,  and 
property  of  the  entire  foreign  population  of  the  country.  With 
internal  politics  it  was  not  to  meddle. 

On  the  mountain,  the  consultation  was  about  the  appeal  and 
the  chances  of  its  having  reached  its.  destination ;  and  also  of 
their  ability  to  hold  out  until  the  arrival  of  succor. 

In  the  capital,  the  consultation  was  between  the  leaders  of 
the  revolt,  who  already  were  divided  among  themselves  on  tw^o 
important  points ;  one,  the  policy  of  incurring  the  hostility  of 
Europe  by  ill-treating  the  whites ;  the  other,  the  advisability 
of  declaring  the  young  prince  Emperor,  in  the  event  of  his 
complying  with  certain  conditions  ;  and  this  whether  his  father 
were  dead  or  not. 

Criss  had  crossed  the  Libyan  desert  when  he  became  sensible 
of  a  great  diminution  of  his  speed.  He  judged  rightly  that  the 
heat  of  the  Sahara  had,  by  creating  a  current  on  its  own  sur- 
face, deflected  or  reversed  the  current  wdth  which  he  had  been 
travelling. 

He  could  not  now  reach  the  point  at  which  he  aimed  before 
nightfall ;  and  he  was  doubtful  whether  he  could  find  that  point 
in  the  dark.  Descending  towards  the  earth  in  search  of  the 
favorable  winds  which  had  failed  him  aloft,  and  which  were 
likely  to  be  prevalent  on  the  SahiTi-a,  it  occurred  to  him  that  it 
might  be  possible  to  hold  communication  with  his  friends  in 
the  settlement,  and  ascertain  before-hand  their  precise  situation. 
The  vast  development  of  the  telegraphic  system  rendered  it  im- 
possible that  the  insurgents  should  have  cut  all  the  wires,  even 


200  BY  AND  BY. 

if  they  had  wished  to  do  so,  and  tliere  might  be  at  hand  means 
of  communicating  direct  with  the  plantation,  without  risk  of 
interception  in  the  capital.  He  remembered  that  the  central 
office  of  tlie  hill  district  was  close  to  the  Elephant  farm,  and 
under  the  supervision  of  Xannie's  brother-in-law;  and  his  tele- 
graph-guide informed  him  that  Atlantika,  being  the  highest 
mountain  of  the  range,  was  provided  with  the  usual  convenience 
for  aeronauts. 

The  sun  was  getting  low  when  the  desert  blasts  became  suffi- 
ciently lulled  for  the  mist  of  sand  to  abate,  and  the  atmosphere 
clear  enough  for  him  to  scan  the  ground  as  he  skimmed  along 
near  the  surface.  Soon  he  caught  sight  of  a  large  white  build- 
ing, which  he  recognized  as  the  place  of  a  well.  It  was  scarcely 
doubtful  that  it  would  contain  also  a  telegraph  station,  for  iu 
that  thirsty  land  a  well  is  the  only  possible  halting  place.  The 
presence  of  travellers,  however,  might  make  it  unsafe  for  him 
to  descend  and  communicate. 

Examining  with  his  glasses  the  inscription  on  the  roof  of  the 
building,  so  placed  in  immense  letters  for  the  benefit  of  aero- 
nauts, Criss  was  pleased  to  find  that  he  had  not  deviated  in  any 
wise  from  his  direct  course,  and  that  the  well  was  in  a  locality 
whose  inhabitants  owed  much  to  the  late  Emperor :  for  it  was 
the  well  of  Keblr,  in  the  country  of  the  Tehu.  But  he  had  still 
two-fifths  of  his  journey  to  accomplish. 

A  large  caravan  was  halting  at  the  well,  such  being  even 
then  the  usual  method  of  locomotion  between  the  provinces  of 
Fezzan  and  Darftir.  Halting  at  some  height,  Criss  perceived 
that  the  caravan  was  waiting  for  the  night,  to  pursue  its  toil- 
some way.  Camels,  disburdened  of  their  loads,  lay  about  with 
their  noses  resting  on  the  bales  of  goods,  and  beside  them,  in 
the  shadow  of  their  huge  bodies,  reposed  the  drivers.  Evidently 
it  was  but  a  caravan  of  merchandize,  and  therefore  peacefully 
disposed. 

Approaching  close  enough  to  parley"  Criss  learnt  that  a  very 
large  party  even  among  the  insurgents  were  believed  to  be 
favorable  to  a  restoration  ;  and  in  return  for  this  news  he  told 
them  the  Emperor  was  dead,  and  the  young  prince  at  Jerusa- 
k'ln  huldinn-  himself  in  readiness  to  return  and  head  his  party. 


BY  AND  BY.  201 

In  fiiiswor  to  his  enquiries  respecting  the  telegraphs,  tliej, 
after  an  examination  of  the  wire-labels,  told  him  that  he  could 
telegraph  direct  to  the  plantation  station  below  Atlantika,  and 
they  offered  to  dispatch  any  message  Criss  wished,  if  his 
journey  was  too  urgent  to  allow  him  to  come  down  and  do  it 
himself. 

Criss  said  it  was  true  that  he  was  in  great  haste,  but  the 
nu^ssa^e  he  had  to  send  was  in  English,  and  therefore  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  communicate  it  himself.  Would  they, 
therefore,  be  so  good  as  to  attach  the  wire  he  would  let  down, 
to  tlie  wire  which  communicated  with  the  Atlantika  station,  as 
he  had  a  battery  in  his  car  ? 

This  done,  Criss  sent  two  messages ;  one  for  Hazeltine  him- 
self, and  another  for  transmission  to  the  Summit,  in  case  the 
settlers  had  deemed  it  expedient  to  form  an  encampment  on  the 
mountain.  Criss  did  not  suppose  the  settlement  could  be  de- 
serted altogether ;  and  even  if  no  one  were  present  when  the 
message  arrived,  it  would  record  itself,  and  be  legible  to  the 
first  comei-.  As  for  the  Summit  telegraphs,  they  are  constructed 
to  call  attention  by  exploding  a  signal.  In  both  messages  Criss 
requested  that  a  beacon  might  be  fired  on  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain towards  midnight,  when  they  might  look  out  for  him. 
But  he  received  no  acknowledgment  in  return. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Even  amid  the  dangers  of  the  insurrection,  Nannie,  with 
ber  wonted  wilfulness,  refused  to  regulate  her  conduct  by  that 
of  tlie  rest  of  the  girls  of  the  settlement.  She  laughed  at  their 
fears,  refused  to  believe  in  the  approach  of  any  enemy,  and 
declared  that  she  would  justify  her  nickname  of  Wild-cat,  by 
remaining  in  her  home  after  everybody  else  had  deserted  it. 
The  body  of  settlers  were  already  on  their  march  up  the  moun- 
tain when  her  absence  was  observed  by  some  of  the  neighbors. 


202  BY  A  XT)   BY. 

"  Wliere  is  Nannie  ?  "  they  asked  of  her  brother-in-law. 

"  She  prefers  to  stay  at  home,  for  once." 

"  But  surely  son  e  one  had  better  go  back  for  her." 

"Not  if  you  want  her  to  come,"  was  his  response.  "Nannie 
has  a  way  of  pleasing  herself.  Our  best  chance  is  to  let  her 
alone." 

They  appealed  to  her  sister,  who  with  looks  the  reverse  of 
cheerful,  was  riding  in  a  ;overed  wagon  with  her  children. 

The  only  answer  they  got  from  her  was, — 

"Nannie  knows  what  she  is  about.  It  is  pleasanter  there 
than  here,  and  I  dare  say  quite  as  safe." 

The  neighbors  looked  at  each  other  significantly^  and  said  no 
more.  As  Nannie's  relations  did  not  show  concern,  it  was  not 
for  others  to  do  so.  So  they  held  on  their  way,  none  of  the 
young  men  venturing  to  volunteer  on  a  quest  of  such  doubtful 
acceptance.  Besides,  there  was  a  general  conviction  that 
Nannie  would  follow  them  when  she  got  tired  of  being  by 
herself. 

The  niglit  and  the  day  passed  without  molestation,  and  the 
party  had  leisure  to  occupy  and  fortify  a  strong  position  high 
up  on  the  mountain  side,  whence  they  could  with  their  glasses 
descry  the  railroad  from  the  capital,  and  any  military  demon- 
stration tliat  might  approach  from  that  quarter.  Fortunately 
it  was  not  the  season  for  rains;  and  the  fear  of  animals  being 
less  than  the  fear  of  the  enemy,  the  camp  fires  were  early 
extinguished. 

So  things  went  until  towards  midnight  on  the  day  after  their 
arrival,  and  no  Nannie  had  made  an- appearance.  Then  came 
an  alarm.  A  bright  glare  lit  up  the  mountain-top,  yet  a  con- 
siderable distance  above  them,  and,  by  reason  of  precipitous 
cliffs,  inaccessible  on  that  side.  While  they  were  wondering 
what  the  light  could  mean,  screams  were  heard  ;  then  a  succes- 
sion of  shots ;  and  presently  all  was  quiet,  and  the  glare  died 
away.  Some  of  the  party  had  fancied  they  had  heard  a  shot  or 
an  explosion  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  evening.  Conjectures 
were  active  for  a  time,  but  no  attack  or  demonstration  followed, 
and  the  alarm  was  not  renewed.  Only  Nannie's  sister  had, 
with  blanched  cheek,  whispered  to  her  husband, — 


BY   AND  BY.  203 

"  I  am  certain  that  was  Nannie's  voice." 

The  alarm  of  tlie  night  was  forgotten  in  the  excitement  of 
the  morning,  when  train  after  train  appeared  moving  up  to- 
wards the  station  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  and  bands  of 
soldiers  disembarked  from  them,  and  formed  into  lines  with  the 
manifest  purpose  of  ascending  the  slope.  This  was  the  signal 
for  removing  the  women  and  children  to  a  yet  greater  height, 
so  that  they  might  be  out  of  the  reach  of  injury  by  the  expected 
assault.  These  had  not  been  long  up  there,  before  they  sent 
word  down  to  saj^  that  they  had  discovered  the  cause  of  last 
night's  alarm ;  for  they  had  found  the  telegraph  station  on  tlie 
summit  burnt  down,  and  the  bodies  of  three  negroes  killed 
either  by  lightning  or  by  gun  shots. 

Strange  to  say,  the  enemy,  instead  of  advancing,  made  a  long 
halt  in  their  ranks  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  station.  Then,  break- 
ing into  groups,  they  appeared  by  their  vehement  gesticulations, 
to  be  engaged  in  hot  controversy  together.  Presently,  to  the 
still  greater  astonishment  of  the  settlers,  they  set  to  work  deli- 
berately to  prepare  a  meal. 

While  the  fugitives  were  marvelling  what  the  delay  and 
apparent  change  of  purpose  meant,  an  aeromotive  hove  in  sight, 
coming  straight  from  the  capital  towards  the  mountain.  Their 
best  glasses  failed  to  make  out  its  character  and  occupants. 
Arrived  directly  over  the  insurgent  camp,  but  considerably 
below  the  position  held  by  the  planters,  the  car  stopped,  and  a 
conversation  took  place,  which  manifestly  roused  the  interest 
of  the  troops  to  the  utmost  pitch.  On  its  termination,  the 
whole  force  broke  into  rounds  of  ringing  cheers,  and  very  ex- 
plosions of  shouts.  The  car  then  proceeded  on  its  course,  and 
approached  the  party  on  the  mountain  with  the  evident  inten- 
tion of  joining  it. 


204  BY  AND  BY 


CHAPTER  VII. 


Nanxie  (lid  not  herself  comprehend  the  feeling  which  made 
her  remain  in  the  settlement  when  every  one  else  fled  from  it ; 
but  Nannie  was  one  wliose  fancies  were  to  her  as  inspirations, 
and  wlio,  when  she  had  a  fancy,  felt  that  she  must  give  way  to 
it,  or  else  go  beside  herself. 

"It  must  be  so,  because  I  think  it." 

"  I  know  it  is  true,  because  I  dreamt  it." 

These  were  her  usual  formulte.  Talk  to  her  of  being  reason- 
able, and  her  lovely  mouth  would  curl  with  ineffable  disdain,  as 
she  exclaimed, — 

"  Reasonable  !  a  woman's  business  is  to  feel,  not  reason." 

With  this  creed  she  was  born,  and  in  it  she  had  grown  up,  re- 
fusing all  culture  of  mind,  all  discipline  of  habit ;  yet  in  native 
quickness  of  perception  so  far  surpassing  all  around  her  as  often 
to  justify  the  contempt  she  openly  expressed  for  their  inferiority 
and  slowness. 

"  Logs !  They  are  all  logs  compared  to  me,"  she  would  ex- 
claim when  any  other  woman  was  mentioned  as  capable  of  doing 
anything  whatever.  And  her  bright  eyes  would  flash,  and  her 
bright  hair  cristle,  and  every  dainty  limb  quiver  with  excite- 
ment, as  she  asserted  the  thoroughness  of  her  own  womanhood, 
to  the  despite  of  every  example  that  could  be  quoted  in  com- 
parison with  lier. 

Her  outward  resemblance  to  her  sister  was  very  great,  but  in 
character  Nannie  was, the  less  self-considering  of  the  two.  Her 
sister  was  not  incapable  of  being  selfish  by  intention.  Nannie 
was  never  selfish,  except  through  the  impetuous  heedlessness 
which  was  apt  to  cause  as  much  ann'oyance  and  distress  to  others 
as  if  she  had  intended  to  hurt  them.  All  heart  as  she  was,  and 
was  jjroud  of  knowing  herself  to  be,  she  was  not  the  less  likely 
to  be  the  cause  of  unhappiness  to  herself  and  those  she  loved, 
than  if  her  heart  had  been  under  the  dominion  of  a  head,  and 


BT  AND  BY.  205 

that  head   proportioned  in    a  way  to  shock  all    phrenological 
proprieties. 

After  the  evacuation  of  the  settlement,  Kannie  roamed  about 
prying  into  the  .neighboring  houses  and  gardens,  fondling  the 
deserted  and  wondering  animals,  and  not  hesitating  to  break  a 
window  and  force  an  entry  wherever  she  espied  a  cat  or  a  bird 
gazing  wistfully  on  the  unwonted  solitude.  More  than  one 
tame  elephant  and  other  huge  beast  acknowledged  her  as  their 
deliverer.  Loading  herself  with  provisions  suited  to  their 
various  tastes,  she  went  through  the  avenues  followed  by  a 
crowd  of  animals,  whom  she  petted  and  teased  by  turns.  Thus 
the  time  passed,  until  the  second  evening  approached,  and  she 
began  to  tire  of  their  sole  companionship.  So,  finding  herself 
back  at  her  home,  she  took  refuge  in  the  telegraph  office,  a 
I^lace  she  was  always  longing  to  explore,  principally  because 
her  brother-in-law,  dreading  her  reckless  inquisitiveness,  had 
strictly  forbidden  her  to  enter  it. 

Here  at  length,  after  committing  various  antics  with  the 
instruments  hj  way  of  experiment,  being  completely  tired  out, 
she  fell  fast  asleep  on  a  rocking  chair,  close  alongside  the  signal 
tell-tale,  and  was  soon  far  away  in  the  world  of  dreams,  a  world 
that  with  her  possessed  a  reality  even  more  vivid  than  the 
world  of  her  waking  hours. 

Nannie  had  ever  been  a  wild  dreamer,  and  there  was  a  per- 
fect consistency  between  her  dreaming  and  her  waking  charac- 
ters; for,  as  when  awake  her  fancies  would  ever  insist  on  being 
transmuted  into  facts,  so  when  asleep  her  visions  revealed  them- 
selves in  movements  and  utterances.  In  short,  she  was  addicted 
to  talking  and  walking  in  her  sleep ;  and  this  through  no  mor- 
bid affection  or  cerebral  disturbance,  but  solely  through  her 
being  so  intensely  alive  in  every  atom  of  her  composition,  that 
it  was  scarcely  possible  for  the  whole  of  her  to  be  asleep  at 
once.  She  suggested  the  notion  of  one  of  those  zoophytic 
creatures,  each  piece  of  which,  on  its  being  cut  up,  becomes  a 
living  and  entire  animal. 

Since   her   adventure    at    sea    and  rescue  by   Criss,  she  had 


206  BY  AND  BY. 

become  conscious  of  some  change  in  her  moods,  both  waking 
and  sleeping.  There  were  even  moments  when  she  felt  her 
wildness  vanish  almost  entirely  away ;  and  she  soon  discovered 
that  these  unwonted  accessions  of  docility  were  contempora- 
neous with  her  reminiscences  of  Criss.  Sorpetimes  her  sister 
caught  her  still  and  thinking  for  a  minute  or  two  together,  and 
on  twitting  her  with  her  seriousness,  Nannie  would  color  and 
exclaim, — 

"Oh,  I  daresay  he  is  a  log,  like  the  rest.     I  hate  logs." 

But  who  the  he  was,  she  did  not  reveal. 

On  the  present  occasion,  Nannie  was  dreaming  of  her  voyage 
through  the  air,  and  of  the  dark-skinned,  bright-eyed  young 
man  who  sat  aloft  in  the  rigging,  leaving  her  the  comfortable 
car  all  to  herself,  and  patiently  answered  all  her  questions,  and 
listened  to  her  fitful  discourse.  Then  she  dreamt  of  herself 
crying  wildly  in  the  garden  on  his  departure,  and  declaring 
that  he  mjist  be  a  log,  or  he  wouldn't  have  gone  away  at  all ; 
and  then  of  her  rage  with  herself  for  seeming  to  care,  when  in 
reality  she  did  not  care  a  bit,  and  only  cried, — she  did  not 
know  why ;  she  supposed  the  tears  came  of  themselves ;  she 
did  not  want  them  to  come.  And  then,  red  and  white  with 
mingled  emotions,  she  started  from  her  sleep,  crying  out, — 

"Yes!  yes!     What  is  it?     I  am  coming!     Quick!    quick!" 

For  the  magnetic  alarum  beside  her  was  sounding  its  sharp 
appeal,  in  token  that  a  message  had  just  inscribed  itself  upon 
the  recording  tablet. 

Nannie  was  soon  wide  enough  awake  to  remember  where  she 
was,  and  to  guess  what  had  happened.  Darting  eagerly  towards 
the  tablet,  she  found  herself  gasping  for  breath  as  she  saw 
Criss's  name,  and  then  read  his  message  from  the  desert  well. 

"  Oh,  those  stupid,  stupid  people ;  to  all  go  away  and  leave 
no  one  to  mind  the  messages,"  she  exclaimed.  "  Criss,  dear, 
good,  stupid  Criss,  coming  to  help  us,  and  he  will  go  flounder- 
ing about  in  the  dark,  looking  for  the  mountain;  and  there  is 
no  one  to  light  the  beacon,  or  send  his  message  on  to  the  sum- 
mit station.  How  I  wish  I  had  learnt  to  use  the  thing.  All 
the  other  girls  here  know  it.  Why  did  they  let  me  grow  up  so 
ignorant  ?     I  don't  seem  to  have  ever  been  taught  anything." 


BY  AND  BY.  207 

And  here  she  stopped  in  her  tirade,  and  colored  violently,  for 
she  remembered  that  it  was  solely  her  own  fault  in  always  per- 
sistently refusing  instruction. 

Then  seizing  the  wire  which  communicated  with  the  summit, 
she  applied  the  magnetic  battery  to  it ;  but  in  trying  to  i;se  the 
instrument,  she  puzzled  in  vain  over  the  letters  necessary  to 
indicate  the  message.  Then  she  cried  with  vexation,  for  she 
thought  the  settlers  might  already  be  on  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain, and  it  only  needed  that  she  should  send  on  the  message 
for  them  to  fire  the  beacon  for  Criss's  guidance.  Her  next 
thought  was,  that  perhaps  they  would  not  go  so  high  up,  and 
that  the  message  would  be  of  no  use,  even  if  it  got  there, 
tlirough  the  absence  of  some  one  to  receive  and  act  upon  it. 

This  last  reflection  quite  overcame  her  patience  ;  and  seizing 
'the  battery  and  the  wires,  she  dashed  them  vehemently  down, 
as  stupid,  useless  creatures.  Nannie  did  know  that  though  she 
could  not  transmit  the  message,  she  had  exploded  the  message- 
signal  on  the  summit. 

Then  sinking  into  the  chair  in  which  she  had  lately  been 
sleeping,  she  meditated. 

"  I'll  do  it  myself,"  she  cried,  starting  up  with  a  determined 
air.     "  I'll  outwit  them  yet !  " 

She  had  not  employed  precisely  the  phrase  that  expressed 
her  meaning;  but  it  was  natural  to  Nannie  to  inveigh  against 
circumstances  as  if  they  were  persons,  and  evilly  disposed 
towards  her. 

Another  hour  saw  Nannie,  laden  with  matches  and  combusti- 
bles, resolutely  trudging  up  the  mountain,  by  a  path  Avith 
which  she  was  well  acquainted,  but  which  lay  at  a  distance 
from  that  taken  by  the  fugitives.  It  was  quite  dark,  and  she 
knew  it  would  take  her  two  or  three  hours  to  reach  the  top ; 
but  the  thought  of  being  useful  to  Criss  sustained  her,  and  she 
did  not  doubt  of  accomplishing  her  jiurpose  by  the  time  he  had 
specified  in  his  message.  She  Avas  animated,  too,  by  a  sense  of 
triumph  over  those  who  would  have  induced  her  to  leave  the 
settlement  with  them,  and  of  the  now  proved  superiority  of  her 
instinct  to  their  reason. 


208  BY  AND  BY. 

^luch  of  the  track  by  which  she  had  to  travel,  was  rough 
with  sharp  .stones,  and.  tangled  with  creeping  plants — impedi- 
ments she  had  never  discovered  in  her  daylight  journeys — and 
Nannie,  in  her  eagerness  to  get  on  her  way,  had  neglected  to 
provide  herself  with  shoes  fitted  for  such  work.  By  the  time 
bhe  reached  the  summit  station,  her  little  feet  were  bleeding 
from  many  a  cut,  her  clothes  torn,  and  her  body  bruised  with 
many  a  heavy  tumble ;  but  her  big  heart  never  faltered,  or  let 
her  fears  prompt  her  to  turn  back,  or  even  to  join  the  fugitives, 
whom  she  perceived  to  be  encamped  at  no  great  distance  on 
another  part  of  the  mountain. 

The  station  was  in  a  little  wooden  hut,  known  as  the  chapel, 
from  having  been  built  several  generations  back  by  the  mission- 
aries, Avho  had  been  instrumental  in  converting  that  country 
from  Islamism  to  Christianity,  partly  for  devotional  purposes, 
and  partly  to  shelter  persons  caught  in  the  storms,  which  at 
that  elevation  are  wont  to  be  of  tremendous  violence.  It  was 
of  dry  pine,  and  highly  inflammalde,  as  Nanny  happened  to 
know  through  the  fierceness  with  which  it  had  burnt,  and  the 
difficulty  with  which  it  had  been  saved,  when  accidentally  set 
on  fire  once  by  a  picnic  party,  at  which  she  had  been  present  as 
a  child. 

A  few  yards  from  the  hut  was  a  ledge  of  stone,  on  which  it 
was  the  wont  of  excursionists  to  make  their  fires  for  cooking, 
and  it  was  on  this  ledge  that  Nannie  prepared  to  make  the 
beacon  required  ])y  Oriss. 

Wanting  light  to  enable  her  to  see  in  order  to  collect  fuel 
from  the  surrounding  thickets,  she  commenced  by  making  a 
small  fire  on  the  stone.  To  her  great  dismay,  she  found  that, 
with  all  her  searching  and  gathering,  the  utmost  she  could 
obtain  was  barely  sufficient  to  keep  this  alive ;  and  her  idea  of 
a  beacon  very  properly  involved  a  blaze  that  could  be  seen  far 
and  wide. 

After  a  little  while,  it  surpassed  her  resources  to  maintain 
even  this  little  fire.  Hushing  into  the  neighboring  thicket,  she 
lighted  match  after  match  against  any  tree  that  she  thought 
might  be  dry  enough  to  burn.  But  all  was  of  no  use,  and  at  last, 
fairly  beaten,  she  sat  down  by  the  smouldering  embers  on  the 


BY  AND  BY.  200 

stone,  and  began  to  cry.  Depressed  by  disappointment,  a  sense 
of  her  desolation  and  loneliness  now  came  vividly  over  her,  and 
to  her  other  woes  added  that  of  terror.  That  Criss  might  fail 
to  carry  out  his  design  never  occurred  to  her.  She  was  entirely 
occupied  with  the  idea  of  him  hovering  round  in  the  dark,  and 
feeling,  as  it  were,  for  the  summit  whereon  to  alight. 

But,  harlv  !  A  sound  !  And  her  heart  beat  as  she  prepared 
to  scream  loudly  in  response  to  his  signalr  Ah  !  it  is  only  the 
public  clock  of  the  settlement,  far  below  and  miles  away,  boom- 
ing the  hour. 

Mechanically  jSTannie  counted  the  strokes.  "  Twelve  !  Mid- 
night !  Why,  he  was  to  be  here  towards  midnight !  Oh,  what 
shall  I  do!     A^Hiat  shallldo!" 

A  thought  strikes  her.  Another  minute,  and  the  thought 
has  become  a  deed.  And  now,  with  a  fierce  roar,  the  flames  of 
the  burning  chapel  are  darting  high  into  the  air,  and  lighting 
up  mountain  and  sky  with  a  bright  and  steady  blaze,  while 
Nannie  is  running  and  dancing  around  it,  and  laughing  tri- 
umphantly, and  clapping  her  little  hands,  as  if  to  encourage  it. 
Xannie  was  no  historian,  or  she  would  have  known  that  she 
was  not  the  first  of  her  sex  to  set  fire  to  a  church  for  the  sake 
of  her  lover.  And  not  only  was  she  no  historian,  but  she  did 
not  know  that  her  feelings  for  Criss  partook  in  any  way  of  the 
character  of  love. 

A  voice,  and  a  rush  !     "  He  comes  !  oh,  he  comes  !  " 

And  Nannie  looked  round  in  the  direction  of  the  sound. 

Alas!  no  Criss,  no  lover;  though  needed  more  than  ever  as  a 
deliverer  now.  Needed  far  more,  even,  than  when  on  the  brink 
of  the  burning  ship  she  stood  ready  to  plunge  into  the  ocean. 
For  the  creatures  that  meet  her  gaze  are  hideous  savages,  grin- 
ning and  glaring  upon  her,  as  half-mad  with  drink  and  brutal 
passion  they  advance,  three  in  number,-  towards  her,  with  out- 
stretched arms  and  fiendish  j-ells. 

They  are  negroes,  who  have  taken  advantage  of  the  disturb- 
ances to  plunder,  and  retired  to  the  mountain  to  carouse  unmo- 
lested,  and  who   have  been  attracted  to  the  summit  by  the 
unusual  sight  of  the  fire. 
14 


210  BY  AND  BY. 

Shrieking  loudly,  Nannie  darted  from  tlioni,  passing  the 
Imriiing  hut  so  closely  that  the  flames  scorched  her.  Terror 
stricken  and  fleet  of  foot,  she  would  probably  have  escaped,  but 
the  dense  thicket  brought  her  up,  and  slie  could  not  get  away 
from  the  light  of  the  tire. 

They  were  closing  in  upon  her,  as  she  still  flew  and  screamed, 
■when,  to  their  amazement  they  found  themselves  confronted  by 
another  whom  the}-  ha<l  not  seen  before,  and  who  now  darted 
between  them  and  their  prey,  with  imperious  language  and 
gestures,  bidding  them  to  forbear,  on  pain  of  instant  destruc- 
tion. 

The  wretches  were  too  infuriated  to  heed  the  speaker.  Two 
of  them  turned  on  him,  while  the  other  continued  the  pursuit 
of  Xannie,  now  too  exhausted  to  fly  further.  Extreme  meas- 
ures were  absolutely  necessary.  What  matter  whether  anthro- 
poid apes,  or  pithecoid  men  ?  Had  it  not  lately  been  declared, 
and  by  one  entitled  to  authority  in  that  country,  that  those  who 
behave  like  wild  beasts — to  say  nothing  of  their  looking  so 
much  like  them — must  be  treated  as  such  ? 

A  couple  of  shots  in  rapid  succession  laid  two  of  the  assailants 
on  the  ground.  In  another  moment,  the  third  had  shared  their 
fate ;  and  Nannie,  glancing  round  at  the  sound,  recognized  her 
deliverer,  and,  witli  a  scream  of  joy,  fell  fainting  on  the 
ground. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Criss  ran  towards  the  fallen  figure  of  her  whom  he  had  a 
second  time  rescued ;  but  finding  his  efforts  to  restore  her  to 
consciousness  vain,  he  hastened  to  his  car,  which  he  had  left 
close  at  hand,  and  presently  returning  with  a  cordial  was  more 
successful  in  winning  her  back  to  life.  When  she  opened  her 
eyes,  he  addressed  her  in  Arabic,  and  was  surprised  to  receive 
only  a  vacant  stare  in  return. 


BY  AND  BY.  211 

Supposing  that  she  was  still  under  the  influence  of  her  recent 
swoon,  he  proceeded  to  pour  more  of  his  reviving  liquid  on  her 
brow  and  hands.  But  she  impatiently  repelled  the  attention, 
and  said  sharply, 

"  Why  do  you  talk  to  me  in  a  language  I  don't  understand  ? 
Are  you  not  Mr.  Carol  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  that  is  my  name  ;  but " 

"But  3^ou  don't  know  me,"  she  interrupted,  "and  you 
thought  it  was  some  other  girl  you  were  saving  ?  "  And  in  the 
access  of  her  momentary  jealousy,  she  energetically  repulsed 
him. 

Then,  softening, 

"  I  did  it  all  to  please  you,"  she  exclaimed,  and  burst  into 
tears. 

"  What !  can  it  be  Nannie  ! "  he  cried ;  "  my  pretty  little 
friend  Nannie !  alone,  up  here,  and  in  this  plight !  " 

"  Of  course  it  is.  Why,  who  else  did  you  think  it  could 
be?" 

And  then,  glancing  at  her  hands  and  clothes,  which  were  all 
torn  and  soiled,  she  said, 

"  Well,  I  do  look  like  a  beggar  girl ;  but,  oh !  I  am  so  sore 
all  over,  with  my  tumbles,  and  the  thorns,  and  running  away 
from  those  nasty  negroes.  I  am  sure  I  must  have  some  dread- 
ful wounds  somewhere,"  and  lifting  her  dress,  she  revealed 
some  ugly  cuts  above  the  ankles,  from  which  the  blood  was 
flowing.     This  alarmed  her,  and  exclaiming, 

"  Oh,  I  can't  bear  the  sight  of  blood,"  she  swooned  away 
again. 

Criss  was  somewhat  embarrassed.  He  could  not  leave  her 
there  and  thus.  And  he  was  most  anxious  to  set  about  fulfill- 
ing his  mission.  Besides,  as  a  young  man,  and  one  who  was 
not  a  doctor,  he  was  naturally  shy  about  investigating  the 
bodily  state  of  one  of  the  other  sex. 

Nannie,  however,  gave  him  little  leisure  for  indulging  his 
embarrassment.     Starting  to  her  senses  again,  she  cried, 

"AVliy  don't  you  stop  the  bleeding?  Surely  a  man  is  not 
afraid  of  the  sight  of  blood.     Have  you  nothing  that  will  do 


212  BY  AND  BY. 

for  a  bandage?  Here,  wrap  this  round.  It  will  do  till  some- 
thing bettor  can  be  got." 

And  she  tore  off  some  strips  from  her  tattered  skirt,  and  gave 
them  to  him. 

Setting  to  work  as  directed,  Criss  did  not  fail  to  derive  con- 
siderable relief  from  her  manifest  unconsciousness  of  the  pecu- 
liarity of  th(*  situation,  and  was  glad  to  accept  her  rebukes  for 
liis  clumsiness  in  proof  of  that  unconsciousness. 

"  I  am  so  hungry,"  said  Nannie,  whimpering  once  more. 

"  That  is  soon  remedied,"  replied  Criss.  "  But  you  must  get 
into  your  old  place  in  the  Ariel's  car,  and  then  you  can  feed, 
and  sleep  too,  as  we  go  along." 

"  Why,  where  are  you  going  to  take  me?" 

'"  Well,  you  see,  we  are  not  the  only  people  in  the  world  to 
be  thought  of,"  he  returned.  "  Now  just  tell  me  exactly  how 
matters  stand  at  the  settlement  ?  " 

"Oh,  such  fun!"  she  cried,  clapping  her  hands;  "there's 
not  a  human  creature  there  ;  and  I  have  set  all  the  doors  and 
gates  open,  and  let  all  the  cats  and  dogs,  and  cows  and  poultry, 
and  other  tame  beasts  loose,  to  go  where  they  like,  and  broken 
the  telegraph  things,  and " 

He  succeeded  at  length  in  learning  from  her  the  whole  situa- 
tion, so  far  as  she  knew  it.  He  then  told  her  that  he  had 
passed  the  troops  on  their  way,  and  that  he  must  at  once  return 
to  the  capital  to  see  if  he  could  do  anything  to  arrest  their  pro- 
gress. 

"  Then  wdiat  are  you  going  to  do  with  me  ?  " 

"Under  all  circumstances,"  he  returned,  "I  think  it  best  to 
take  you  with  me  to  the  capital,  and  perhaps  deposit  you  with 
a  doctor  to  be  properly  attended  to  while  I  am  busy." 

"  You  seem  very  anxious  to  get  rid  of  me,"  she  said,  with  a 
pout.  "  I  hate  doctors,  and  don't  want  to  be  left  by  myself  in 
the  city,  with  strangers.  Besides,  I  am  quite  well  now,  or 
shall  be  when  I  have  had  something  to  eat." 

"  Well,  get  into  the  car  at  once,"  said  Criss,  "  and  we  will 
settle  the  rest  as  we  go  along."  And  he  helped  her  to  get  up, 
and  move  towards  the  Ariel ;  but  she  was  so  stiff  and  exhaust- 
ed that  he  had  almost  to  carry  her  and  lift  her  in. 


BY  AND  BY.  213 

The  couple  of  hundred  miles  which  separate  the  mountain 
from  the  city,  were  soon  spanned;  but  not  before  Nannie,  who 
had  eaten  a  hearty  meal,  was  fast  asleep.  Criss  had  been 
amused  to  find  that  on  catching  sight  of  herself  in  a  little  mir- 
ror which  was  in  the  car,  for  the  fire  still  burnt  brightly,  she 
insisted  on  washing  her  face  and  arranging  her  disordered  hair 
before  touching  a  particle  of  food.  With  a  light  wrapper  of 
Criss's  thrown  over  her  head  and  shoulders,  she  really  looked  as 
charming  once  more,  Criss  thought,  as  it  was  possible  for  any 
one  to  look,  even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances. 

Approaching  the  capital,  Criss  arrested  his  flight,  intending 
to  hover  around  it  until  the  arrival  of  daylight  should  make  it 
possible  for  him  to  hold  communication  with  the  authorities. 

To  his  great  satisfaction,  his  passenger  continued  to  sleep 
soundly. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


AvEXiL  knew  that  Criss  would  not  have  dispatched  such  a 
message  to  him  as  that  which  he  received  from  Jerusalem,  had 
there  not  been  a  good:  cause  for  urgency.  Losing  no  time  in 
communicating  with  the  Confederate  Council,  he  found  that  or- 
ders had  already  been  issued,  in  answer  to  the  appeal  of  the 
white  settlers  in  Bornou,  to  desi)atch  an  aerial  force  to  their 
aid.  But,  as  Criss's  message  suggested  to  Avenil,  the  mischief 
might  be  done  before  that  force  could  arrive.  He  therefore 
represented  to  the  Council  the  propriety  of  telegraphing  to  the 
leaders  of  the  revolution  in  the  African  capital,  the  strongest 
assurances  of  condign  punishment  should  any  harm  befall  the 
Europeaii  population ;  stating  at  the  same  time  that  the  mes- 
sage would  be  immediately  followed  by  a  force  capable  of  utter- 
ly destroying  the  city  by  raining  explosives  and  inextinguish- 
able fire  upon  it. 

Criss  did  not  pause  to  hover  around  the  capital  as  he  had  in- 


214  BY  AND  BY. 

tended.  Por,  although  it  was  not  yet  light,  he  fonnd  the  whole 
population  on  the  alert,  and  the  leaders  in  full  conclave.  Un- 
certain of  their,  temper,  he  hesitated  about  alighting  to  seek  a 
doctor  for  Nannie.  Besides,  her  sound  continued  sleep  assured 
him  that,  under  the  care  of  nature,  she  was  doing  well. 

He  had  intended  to  plead  with  the  insurgent  chiefs  the  cause 
of  the  fugitive  prince  and  the  settlers,  by  a.ssuring  them  of  vast 
rewards  if  thej  would  reinstate  the  former,  and  of  the  severest 
punishment  if  they  injured  the  latter.  And  he  was  prepared 
to  work  upon  the  popular  superstitiousness  by  announcing  the 
safety  of  the  sacred  gems  of  the  crown,  and  to  offer  himself  as  a 
guarantee  that  they  and  the  prince  should  be  forthcoming  at  a 
fitting  time.  But  for  the  present  he  would  defer  seeking  the 
necessary  interview. 

Finding  the  city  awake  and  abroad  as  if  it  had  been  up  and 
out  all  night,  he  contented  himself  in  the  first  instance  with 
descending  low  enough  to  catch  the  meaning  of  the  cries  and 
convei'sations  which  were  going  on  in  the  streets.  He  could  do 
this  without  himself  being  seen,  as,  though  the  city  below  was 
lighted,  the  air  above  was  still  dark.  Yet  he  observed  number- 
less faces  constantly  upturned  towards  the  still  darkened  sky, 
as  if  in  expectation  of  a  visit  from  that  region  :  but  it  was  some 
time  before  he  could  string  together  the  sentences  he  caught, 
so  as  to  gather  from  them  a  connected  meaning. 

At  length  when  dawn  was  so  near  that  he  thought  of  retreat- 
ing, he  discovered  the  cause  of  the  general  anxiety.  A  mes- 
sage had  arrived  in  the  night  from  the  Council  of  European 
Nations,  declaring  in  the  most  positive  terms  that  the  city 
should  be  razed  to  the  ground,  and  utter  destruction  dealt  on 
the  people,  if  any  injury  was  done  to  a  single  European  in  the 
country  ;  and  that  an  aerial  expedition  was  already  on  its  way, 
with  strict  instructions  and  ample  means  relentlessly  to  execute 
the  vengeance  denounced. 

This  was  such  a  practical  method  of  dealing,  that  Criss  was 
strongly  disposed  to  see  Avenil's  hand  in  it,  and  he  congratu- 
lated himself  on  his  forethought  in  telegraphing  to  him  from 
Jerusalem. 


BY  AND  BY.  215 

Having  thus  obtained  a  key,  he  soon  succeeded  in  unlocking 
the  mystery.  The  news  of  the  threatened  vengeance  had  got 
abroad,  and  the  whole  population  had  assembled  to  insist  on  the 
Government  instantly  countermanding  the  movement  of  the 
troops  dispatched  against  the  settlers  ;  and  such  was  the  alarm 
lest  the  Confederate  Squadron  should  arrive  and  commence  the 
work  of  destruction,  that  even  after  they  knew  the  expedition 
had  been  recalled,  they  remained  all  night  in  the  streets  watch- 
ing the  northern  sky  for  the  first  glimpse  of  the  expected  foe. 
Sucli  was  the  estimation,  justly  earned,  in  which  the  Council  of 
the  Confederated  Nations  was  held. 

The  circumstance  of  the  Central  Military  Depot  of  the  Fed- 
eral Aerial  Forces  being  in  England,  served  to  save  time.  It 
was  the  stability  of  the  English  character  and  institutions, 
added  to  the  insularity  of  the  country's  position,  that  had  led  to 
the  other  nations  fixing  on  England  as  the  best  depository  for 
such  a  charge. 

Assured  now  that  a  stranger  had  nothing  to  fear,  but  rather 
the  contrary,  from  the  populace,  Criss  had  no  longer  a  motive 
for  concealment.  He  determined,  however,  to  reveal  himseK  in 
such  a  way  as  to  impress  them  with  a  sense  of  the  importance 
and  authority  of  his  mission. 

So,  making  a  considerable  detour  to  the  north,  and  ascending 
high  into  the  air,  he  rapidly  returned  in  a  direct  line  towards 
the  city,  dropping  from  his  car  as  he  flew,  signal  bombs,  which 
exploded  in  the  air.  He  was  gratified  by  the  result  of  this 
scheme  in  two  ways.  First,  the  explosions  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  populace,  eliciting  from  them  loud  cries  of  terror, 
and  from  the  authorities  signals  in  reply.  And,  secondly,  they 
did  not  awaJte  Xannie. 

It  was  daylight  now,  when,  beheld  by  myriads  of  upturned 
eyes,  Criss's  car  rushed  through  the  air,  and  alighted  upon  the 
flat  roof  of  the  lofty  building  which  he  had  before  ascertained 
to  be  the  headquarters  of  the  authorities. 

Surprise  took  the  place  of  fear  when  it  was  seen  that  this 
little  car  was  alone,  and  that  it  contained,  apparently,  but  a 
solitary  individual. 


216  BY  AND  BY. 

Addressinfif  the  people  through  his  speaking-trumpet,  Criss 
desired  the  princii)al  persons  in  authority  to  show  themselves 
on  the  terrace  of  the  huilding  below,  in  order  that  he  might 
hold  an  interview  with  them. 

These  presented  themselves,  and  respectfully  enquired  of 
Criss  whether  he  was  connected  with  the  threatened  expedition 
of  the  European  Confederacy. 

Criss  replied  in  the  affirmative,  and  added  that  it  was  not 
very  far  behind  him.  The  object  of  his  presence  thus  early 
was  to  obtain  in  advance  of  its  arrival  positive  information 
respecting  the  situation,  especially  as  it  affected  the  foreigners, 
and  to  report  to  it  accordingly.  Nothing  but  the  safety  of  the 
■whites  would  ensure  their  own.  "What  had  they  done  towards 
this  end  ? 

They  assured  him  by  their  chief  spokesman  that  the  troops 
Avhich  had  been  despatched  to  the  mountains  over  night  would 
be  met  on  their  arrival  by  positive  orders  to  abandon  the  enter- 
prise, and  return  to  the  capital. 

"  Can  you  depend  upon  their  obeying  you  ?"  he  asked. 

It  was  clear  to  Criss  that  this  was  a  perplexing  question,  and 
that  the  revolutionary  government  placed  very  little  reliance 
on  the  fidelity  of  the  troops  in  the  event  of  their  desire  for 
violence  and  plunder  being  thwarted. 

"  The  Federal  squadron,"  he  said,  "  will  certainly  not  return 
home  without  inflicting  punishment,  unless  they  have  positive 
proof  that  their  countrymen  are  unharmed.  It  is  a  part  of 
my  duty  to  proceed  to  the  settlements,  and  ascertain  their  con- 
dition for  myself.  When  I  have  actually  seen  the  troops  em- 
barked on  their  way  back,  I  will  return  and  communicate  the 
intelligence  to  the  Federal  commanders,  whom  I  shall  then 
doubtless  find  here.  In  the  meantime  you  will  do  well  to  con- 
sider what  further  steps  are  practicable  for  compelling  the 
instant  return  of  the  troops." 

After  a  brief  and  excited  colloquy,  the  chiefs  again  addressed 
him  saying  : 

"We  thank  you  for  the  suggestion.  We  have  decided  to 
place  the  wives  and  families  of  the  entire  force  under  immedi- 


BY  AND  BY.  217 

ate  arrest,  and  telegraph  to  the  troops  that  on  their  failure  to 
obey  us,  we  shall  massacre  the  whole  of  their  families." 

Feeling  sure  that  such  a  necessity  would  not  arise,  Criss 
could  not  help  smiling  inwardly  at  the  vigor  of  the  resolution, 
and  the  testimony  it  bore  to  the  wholesome  respect  for  European 
civilization  felt  by  these  people.  He  thought  of  Avenil's  doc- 
trine of  the  physical  basis  of  virtue. 

''  So  far,  well,"  he  replied,  "  but  I  must  proceed  thither 
nevertheless.  There  is  one  other  point  in  which  I  have  first 
to  confer  with  you.  This  time  I  speak,  not  as  connected  with 
the  Federal  Council,  but  as  agent  of  the  fugitive  Prince  of 
Abyssinia,  your  legitimate  sovereign,  now  that  his  father,  the 
late  Emperor,  is  dead." 

Was  it  certain  that  he  was  dead  ?  they  asked  eagerly. 

"  Certain.  I  was  with  him  when  dying,  and  received  his 
dying  injunctions." 

They  announced  to  the  multitude,  who  stood  watching  the 
conference  with  vast  interest,  that  Theodoros  was  really  dead ; 
and  a  great  shout  immediately  arose,  which  appeared  to  Criss 
to' be  one  of  satisfaction. 

Was  it  the  Emperor  personally,  the  dynasty,  or  the  form  of 
government,  that  was  obnoxious  to  them  ?  he  asked. 

This  question  excited  an  indescribable  commotion.  It  seemed 
to  Criss  as  if  everybody  was  shouting  at  once,  and  shouting 
conflicting  answers.  Among  the  replies  he  caught  one  to  the 
effect  that  they  had  nothing  against  the  young  Prince ;  and 
another,  that  they  would  acknowledge  no  dynasty  which  did 
not  possess  the  Talisman  of  Solomon. 

On  the  hubbub  subsiding,  the  chiefs  asked  Criss  Avhy  he 
should  interest  himself  in  their  form  of  government. 

"  In  this  matter,"  he  replied,  "  I  act  as  one  who  wishes  to 
serve  you,  the  Prince,  and  all  people  ;  and  also  as  one  who  has 
both  the  power  to  restore  the  Prince  and  the  sacred  gems,  and 
the  will  to  assist  him,  if  he  be  restored,  in  making  this  one  of 
the  happiest  countries  of  the  earth, — even  to  the  turning  of  the 
Sahara  into  a  garden,"  he  added,  using  their  favorite  hyper- 
bole. 


218  J5r  AND  BY. 

It  seemed  to  him  tliat  at  this  moment  they  must  have  ob- 
tained a  better  view  of  him  than  during  the  previous  part  of 
the  conversation,  or  had  come  to  take  a  greater  interest  in  his 
person  ;  for,  as  by  one  consent,  all  eyes  had  commenced  intently 
to  scrutinize  him,  as  he  stood  erect  in  his  car,  with  one  hand 
holding  one  of  the  Ariel's  side  rods,  and  his  speaking-trumpet 
in  the  other. 

The  scrutiny  continued  for  some  moments  in  silence,  Criss, 
on  his  part,  composedly  confronting  the  crowd,  and  waiting  for 
a  reply. 

Then  as  fi'om  one  huge  throat  arose  the  shout : 

"  It  is  the  Prince  !     It  is  the  Prince  himself  !" 

Criss  had  not  thovight  of  the  resemblance,  and  the  effect  it 
was  likely  to  jn-oduce  if  observed.  Should  he  utilize  the  mis- 
take, or  undeceive  them  ?  To  attempt  the  latter,  he  at  once 
perceived  would  be  unavailing.  What  would  his  word  be 
against  the  unanimous  testimony  of  their  own  eyesight  ?  He 
must  therefore  utilize  the  mistake.  But  before  he  had  time  to 
speak,  they  cried : 

"  Come  back,  oh  Prince,  come  back  to  us  ;  come  back  with 
the  Sacred  Talisman  of  thy  ancestors,  and  we  will  receive  thee 
gladly.     But  without  that  no  king  reigns  in  Soudan." 

"Answer  me  this,  then,  before  I  go  forward  on  the  mission 
that  is  to  save  your  homes  from  destruction.  Do  you  pledge 
yourselves  to  receive  back  your  Prince,  and  to  remain  faithful 
to  him,  whenever  he  shall  present  himself  with  the  sacred 
talisman  ?  "  ■ 

The  crowd  and  the  chiefs  were  by  this  time  become  as  one 
body.  Criss  addressed  himself  alike  to  all,  and  all  joined  in 
the  replies. 

"  Yes  !  yes  !  they  cried  ;  "but  where  is  it  now  ?" 

"  It  is  safe,  in  England." 

"  England  !  The  land  that  made  us  Christians  !  We  ad- 
mire and  respect  England,  though  it  afterwards  abandoned  the 
faith  it  had  given  to  us." 

"  Christians  indeed,"  thought  Criss,  with  an  inward  sigh,  as 
he  remembered  how,  in  close  imitation  of  the  long  dark  ages  of 


BY   AND  BY.  219 

Christendom,  the  country  had  fostered  under  that  sacred  name 
some  of  the  most  degrading  superstitions.  He  thought,  too, 
how  natural  it  seemed  to  be  for  those  who  remained  in  the 
rudiments  of  things,  to  regard  as  apostates  and  unbelievers 
those  who  proceeded  to  higher  developments. 

"  England  ! "  they  shouted  again.  "  If  we  restore  you  to  the 
throne,  will  you  get  England  to  help  us  to  shake  off  the  yoke 
of  the  Jews  ?  " 

"  You  may  be  assured  that  all  this,  and  much  more,  will  be 
as  you  wish,  if  only  you  act  like  an  enlightened  and  civilized 
people,"  returned  Criss.  "  For  my  part  I  pledge  myself  to  do 
my  utmost  to  fulfil  your  righteous  desires.  For  the  present  I 
go  to  the  mountains  to  see  that  the  land  of  Soudan  does  not 
incur  the  shame  of  maltreating  strangers  to  whom  its  hospital- 
ity has  been  pledged." 

At  the  moment  of  departing  he  paused  once  more,  and  writ- 
ing something  on  a  tablet,  he  threw  it  down  to  the  chiefs, 
desiring  them  to  give  it  to  the  commander  of  the  Federal 
squadron  on  his  arrival.  Beside  a  message  to  that  officer,  it 
contained  also  a  message  for  Bertie,  in  case  he  should  have 
accompanied  the  expedition,  an  event  which  his  knowledge  of 
Avenil  caused  him  to  regard  as  more  than  probable  ;  and  which 
his  scheme  for  solving  the  problem  of  the  situation  rendered 
almost  indispensable. 

He  was  anxious  to  start  without  further  delay,  for  he  heard 
Nannie  moving  in  the  car  as  if  awake,  and  he  was  exceedingly 
averse  to  her  being  discovered  there. 

"  Have  I  been  good  ?  "  she  asked,  when  they  were  once  more 
aloft,  and  on  their  way  back  to  the  settlement.  "  I  did  so  want 
to  pop  my  head  out  while  you  were  talking  with  those  people ; 
but  I  did  not  know  whether  you  would  like  me  to  be  seen."    . 

"  You  have  been  the  very  best  of  girls,"  said  Criss.  "  Under 
the  circumstances,  it  would  have  been  exceedingly  inconvenient 
for  you  to  be  seen.  I  am  glad  to  find  you  have  so  much  self- 
control." 

"  Oh,  I  haven't  a  bit  of  that,"  she  returned  ;  "  but  I  thought 
you  would  approve  of  my  keeping  still.  What  would  they 
have  done  had  they  caught  sight  of  me  ?  " 


220  BY  AND  BY. 

"  That  I  cannot  exactly  say ;  but  it  might  have  interfered 
with  some  very  important  plans  which  I  have." 

"  You  are  very  young  to  have  anything  so  important  to  do." 

"  Circumstances  sometimes  force  things  upon  one,"  answered 
Criss.  "  Did  you  ever  happen  to  see  the  late  Emperor  or  his 
son  ?  " 

"  No,  never ;  but  I  have  heard  that  the  Prince  is  very  good 
looking.  And  I  hope  he  is,  for  I  cannot  imagine  a  Prince 
being  ugly." 

"Well,  they  want  the  Prince  to  come  back  and  be  Emperor; 
and  I  promised  to  let  him  know,  and  perhaps  help  to  bring 
him." 

"  Why,  where  is  he  ?  " 

"  I  left  him  yesterday  at  Jerusalem." 

"  So  you  will  be  going  away  again,"  she  said,  pouting. 

"  Certainly.  I  am  but  a  chance  visitor  to  these  regions.  My 
home,  you  know,  is  in  England." 

"  Pll  never  be  good  again,"  said  Nannie,  resolutely,  after  a 
short  pause,  and  looking  very  miserable. 

"  Surely  that  is  a  rasher  vow  than  you  will  find  it  in  your 
mind  to  keep." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  know  how  bad  I  can  be,"  she  answered.  "  I 
have  the  evilest  mind,  but  I  don't  think  my  heart  is  bad.  But 
I  never  get  anything  nice  by  being  good ;  at  least,  since  grand- 
mother died." 

"  And  how  did  she  reward  you  ?  " 

"She  always  kissed  me.  I  have  had  no  one  to  kiss  me  since. 
I  would  have  done  anything  for  her,  darling  granny.  She  took 
all  the  care  that  was  taken  of  me  after  my  mother's  death.  I 
believe  my  father  hated  her  only  because  I  was  fond  of  her. 
He  never  kissed  me  in  his  life,  that  I  can  remember." 

"  It's  a  pity  that  I  am  not  your  grandmother,  Nannie,  for 
then  I  could  have  rewarded  you  as  she  used  to." 

"  You  did  kiss  me  once,  you  know.     But  I  did'nt  like  it." 

"  Indeed !  I  am  sorry  for  that.  You  must  ascribe  my  un- 
gkilfulness  to  want  of  practice." 

"  It  isn't  practice  that's  needed,"  she  said,  shortfy. 


BY  AND  BY.  221 

"No?     Wliattlien?" 

"  Affection.  You  didn't  care  for  me  enough  to  kiss  me  in 
the  right  pLace.  People  who  care  don't  kiss  on  the  forehead," 
she  added,  pouting. 

"  Well,  Nannie,  I  must  say  that  when  you  put  out  your  lips 
like  that,  they  do  look  very  much  as  if  they  were  made  for 
kissing." 

"  Of  course  they  were,"  she  said.  "  Only  you  expect  me  to 
be  good  wnthout  rewarding  me  when  I  am." 

"  Well,  Nannie ;  if  a  kiss  from  me,  in  the  right  place,  be  any 
reward,  I  am  sure  you  are  welcome  to  so  slight  a  gift." 

"  Hear  the  boy  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  He  calls  '  a  slight  gift ' 
what  Mattie  declares  any  other  man  would  give  his  eyes  for," 
and  she  put  her  face,  covered  with  an  arch  smile,  close  to  his — 
for  they  were  in  the  same  compartment  of  the  car — and  pouting 
like  a  petulant  bewitching  child,  said, — 

"  Give  it  to  me,  then." 

When  they  had  exchanged  kisses,  Nannie  was  quiet  and 
content,  merely  remarking  demurely, — 

"  I  suppose  I  ought  to  say  '  thank  you,'  for  I  am  evidently 
the  one  favored."  And  again,  after  a  pause,  as  if  speaking  to 
herself, — 

"  I  do  belieA^e  he  gave  it  to  me  because  he  thought  I  wanted 
it,  and  not  because  he  w'anted  it  himself." 

But  for  Criss,  unacquainted  as  he  was  with  the  magnetic 
phenomena  of  the  lips,  a  new  order  of  things  seemed  to  have 
commenced  in  the  universe.  He  felt  his  whole  nature  for  the 
moment  possessed  by  some  novel  and  powerful  sorcery,  and 
scarce  knew  whether  to  regard  Nannie  as  woman,  child,  or 
witch.  Anyhow,  he  felt  convinced  that  no  other  pair  of  lips  in 
the  world  could  have  such  a  power. 

It  required  a  much  more  practised  faculty  of  discernment  in 
such  matters  than  Criss  had,  to  see  that,  while  on  one  side  of 
Nannie's  nature  she  was  as  a  child  starving  for  an  endearing 
caress,  on  the  other  side  she  was  a  very  woman  in  her  conscious- 
ness of  the  irresistible  mi^ht  of  her  charms. 


222  BY  AND  BY 


CHAPTER  X. 

It  has  already  been  related  how  Criss  visited  the  troops  en- 
camped at  the  foot  of  Atlantika,  and  after  a  lengthened  colloquy 
ascended  to  the  settlers  who  were  posted  on  the  hill. 

His  arrival  from  the  capital  occurred  at  a  fortunate  moment, 
for  the  troojis  were  almost  in  open  mutiny  against  their  officers, 
and  disposed  to  attack  the  whites,  or  at  least  plunder  the  settle- 
ment, in  spite  of  the  urgent  dispatches  received  from  the  city, 
and  the  positive  orders  of  their  commanders.  These  latter 
knew  enough  of  the  Federal  Council  and  the  resources  at  its 
disposal,  to  fear  the  worst  in  the  event  of  its  menaces  being  dis- 
regarded. With  the  ignorant  soldiery  it  was  different,  and  the 
arrival  of  the  dispatch  from  the  authorities  inBornou  declaring 
that  in  the  event  of  their  orders  being  disobeyed  they  would 
massacre  every  woman  and  child  belonging  to  the  force,  proved 
a  most  useful  stimulus  to  their  submission. 

In  this  mood,  while  sullen  with  disappointment,  and  angry 
with  the  revolutionary  leaders,  Criss's  arrival  proved  a  welcome 
diversion.  It  served  to  give  reality  to  the  news  from  the 
cajiital,  and  reconcile  the  troops  to  their  own  forbearance. 
Throughout  his  journey  he  had  been  possessed  by  one  appre- 
hension. He  feared  that  the  authorities  might  anticipate  his 
arrival  at  the  camp,  by  a  telegram  announcing  him  as  the  prince, 
and  notifying  their  readiness  to  receive  him  as  Emperor,  now 
that  Theodoros  was  dead.  That  they  had  not  done  so  was  due 
only  tp  their  distrust  of  the  temper  of  the  troops.  The  intelli- 
gence of  the  counter-revolution  might  exasperate  them  into 
committing  the  violence  now  so  much  deprecated. 

So  Criss  himself  was  the  bearer  of  the  news  that  the  aerial 
squadrons  of  the  Confederate  Nations  of  Europe  were  hourly 
expected  at  the  capital ;  that  the  Emperor  was  dead,  and  the 
whole  people  ready  to  welcome  the  prince,  who,  on  his  part,  was 
prepared  to  rule  in  accordance  with  their  wishes.  The  one 
thing  necessary  now  was  that  he  should  be  enabled  to  return 


BY  AND  BY.  223 

almost  immediately  to  the  city,  and  inform  the  Federal  com- 
manders that  he  had  himself  seen  that  the  whites  were  unmo- 
lested, and  the  troops  actually  in  the  trains,  and  on  their  return 
home.  As  for  their  present  disappointment,  they  ought  to  be 
thankful  at  having  escaped  the  disgrace  of  violating  the  laws  of 
hospitality  in  regard  to  the  white  settlers ;  and,  for  the  future, 
let  them  only  prove  faithful  to  their  new  engagements,  and  a 
compensation  would  not  be  lacking  under  the  restored  regime. 

Criss  committed  Nannie  to  the  charge  of  her  relatives  on  the 
hill,  telling  them  that  she  had  been  injured  by  a  fall,  and  re- 
quired attention.  Nannie  herself  was  too  disconcerted  by  the 
necessity  for  Criss's  speedy  departure  to  say  much  about  herself. 
Indeed,  if  the  full  truth  were  to  be  told,  it  would  have  to  be 
admitted  that  for  several  hours  she  was  much  too  cross  to  open 
her  mouth. 

Criss  gave  the  settlers  a  sketch  of  the  position  of  affairs,  and 
as  soon  as  he  had  seen  the  last  train  moving  off  with  the  troops, 
started  on  his  way  back  to  the  capital,  having  promised  Nannie 
to  return  before  long,  and  enquire  after  her  wounds. 

It  was  with  considerable  anxiety  that  Criss  once  more  ap- 
proached the  city.  Knowing  how  shallow  and  fickle  are  all 
uncultivated  peoples,  especially  those  reared  under  the  tropics, 
he  feared  that  the  resolution  of  the  Bornouse  would  not  long 
hold,  excepting  under  the  pressure  of  a  palpable  object  of  dread. 
It  was  mainly  to  the  expected  arrival  of  the  Federal  squadron 
that  the  recent  conversion  had  been  due.  Should  any  chance 
occur  to  delay  its  coming  until  after  the  return  of  the  troops 
from  the  hills,  it  was  impossible  to  say  what  revulsion  of  senti- 
ment might  take  place.  At  any  rate,  thought  Criss,  it  would 
not  do  for  him  to  show  himself  again  until  backed  by  the 
expected  force.  It  was  therefore  with  much  anxiety  that  he 
kept  his  look-out  as  he  apjiroached  the  city. 

The  excitement  in  the  Bornouse  capital  was  intense,  when  at 
length  the  M^ord  was  given  that  Something  was  visible  in  the 
northern  horizon.  Taking  it  for  granted  that  such  Something 
could  only  be  the  expected  expedition,  the  whole  population 
flocked  to  the  roofs  of  their  houses,  and  all  the  most  elevated 
places,  to  witness  the  portentous  advent. 


224  BY  AXD  BY. 

They  were  not  disapjiointed,  either  in  the  fact  of  the  Some- 
tliing  being  the  aerial  fleet,  or  in  the  strangeness  of  the  aspect 
it  presented. 

Swiftly  and  steadily  the  vessels  came  careering  onwards, 
looming  larger  and  larger  as  they  approached,  resembling,  in 
their  order  and  regularity,  a  flight  of  gigantic  wild  fowl ;  for 
now  they  would  range  themselves  in  long  lines,  wedge-shape, 
one  behind  the  other ;  now  expand  into  curves,  and  then  stretch 
straight  out  into  one  long  array,  like  an  advancing  line  of 
battle ;  and  finally,  as  they  came  up  to  the  menaced  capital, 
reversing  the  direction  of  their  line,  so  as  to  arrive  singly,  one 
after  the  other,  the  car  of  the  admiral  in  command  having  the 
lead. 

Arrived  directly  over  the  city,  they  suddenly  brought  up, 
and  remained  nearly  stationary.  As  they  paused  on  high, 
keeping  themselves,  by  a  slight  movement  of  their  machinery, 
floating  slowly  about,  now  spread  out  over  the  whole  area  of 
the  city,  now  collected  into  a  compact  mass,  it  might  well  have 
seemed  to  the  myriads  of  the  inhabitants,  who,  with  upturned 
faces,  were  gazing  from  below,  that  thej'^  themselves  were  fishes 
at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  that  this  was  a  vast  fleet  of  huge 
war  ships,  whose  dark  hulls  lay  floating  on  the  surface. 

It  was  indeed  a  far  larger  force  than  was  necessary  for  the 
task  of  destroying  a  city.  But  the  chance  had  been  utilized  as 
an  occasion  for  practice ;  and  in  addition  to  the  vessels  of  de- 
struction, the  Council  had  deemed  it  advisable  to  dispatch  a 
large  number  of  transports,  in  case  it  should  prove  necessary  to 
remove  the  white  settlers  from  the  country. 

So  impressed  was  the  multitude  with  the  aspect  of  these 
mighty  engines  of  war,  lying  so  secure  in  their  calm  grandeur, 
far  out  of  reach,  that  they  remained  hushed  as  in  terrified  ex- 
pectation of  the  sudden  descent  of  the  shower  of  all-consuming 
fire  with  which  they  had  been  threatened. 

The  national  flag,  exhibited  by  being  stretched  horizontally 
above  the  Hall  of  Government,  indicated  to  the  aerial  squadron 
the  headquarters  of  the  authorities.  Presently  a  line  was  seen, 
with  a  dispatch  attached  to  it,  descending  from  the  car  of  the 


BY  AND  BY.  225 

admiral,   straight  upon   tlie   Hall,  where   the   chiefs  were  col- 
lected. 

With  eager  anxiety,  it  was  received  and  read. 

Briefly  stating  the  nature  and  object  of  the  expedition,  the 
message  asked  what  plea  the  city  could  urge  against  being 
instantly  destroyed. 

A  reply  was  returned,  stating  that  no  injury  whatever  had 
been,  or  would  be  done  to  the  white  settlers,  and  that  the  troops 
sent  against  them  had  been  recalled,  and  were  then  on  their 
way  back.  Moreover,  that  it  had  been  determined  to  restore 
the  Empire,  by  setting  the  Prince  of  Abyssinia  on  the  throne, 
and  that  the  prince  had  gone  in  person  to  assure  himself  of  the 
safety  of  the  foreigners,  and  was  hourly  expected  to  return  to 
meet  the  chiefs  of  the  Federal  Expedition. 

Together  with  this  reply  they  sent  up  the  note  left  by  Criss. 

"Bless  the  boy  ! "  exclaimed  Bertie  to  the  admiral  (for  owing 
to  Avenil's  sagacious  intervention,  and  powerful  interest,  Bertie 
was  indeed  there).  "  Bless  the  boy !  what  does  it  all  mean  ? 
I  know  he  left  the  prince  at  Jerusalem  yesterday  morning. 
Can  they  be  trying  to  deceive  us  ?  Yet  this  is  his  writing,  sure 
enough." 

"AVlio  is  he?''''  asked  the  admiral. 

"  A  difficult  question  to  answer  all  at  once,"  replied  Bertie. 
"Eor  the  last  twenty-one  years  he  has  occupied  the  position  of 
ward  to  Lord  Avenil  and  myself;  and  now  having  come  to  his 
fortune,  he  is  looking  for  an  investment  for  it." 

"  Large  ?  "  asked  the  admiral,  who  delighted  in  the  laconic, 
and  spoke  as  if  his  habit  of  navigating  the  air  had  made  him 
short  of  wind :  so  reluctant  is  professional  mannerism  to  yield 
to  the  advance  of  civilization. 

"  Millions,"  replied  Bertie,  unconsciously  adopting  the  admi- 
ral's style  ;  and  in  his  desire  to  win  credit  for  Criss,  totally  for- 
getting his  pledge  of  secrecy. 

"  What  has  he  to  do  with  these  people  ?  " 

"  Has  friends  here,  and  came  to  save  them." 

"All  by  himself?  "  said  the  admiral, with  an  incredulous  air. 

"But  for  him  we  should  probably  have  been  too  late." 
15 


226  BY  AND  BY. 

"  We  should  have  taken  ample  revenge,  though." 

"  So  that  he  has  saved  the  city  as  well  as  the  settlers." 

"  Ilumjjh,"  said  the  admiral. 

"  Please,  sir,"  said  an  officer,  entering,  "  a  visitor  has  called 
to  see  the  officer  commanding  the  expedition." 

It  was  Criss,  who,  seeing  the  fleet  resting  over  the  cit_v,  had 
steered  straight  for  the  admiral's  car.  Having  attached  his 
own  to  it,  he  came  on  board. 

"Mr.  Carol,  my  late  ward,"  said  Bertie,  introducing  him. 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  sir,"  said  the  admiral.  "  Can  3'ou  throw 
any  light  on  this  document  ?  What  do  these  people  mean  by 
the  jjrince  ?  " 

"  They  mean  me,"  said  Criss,  smiling  ;  and  he  briefly  related 
the  circumstances  under  wdiich  the  threatened  outrage  had 
been  averted,  and  the  dynasty  restored. 

"  You  have  got  3^ourself  into  a  mess,  young  gentleman,"  said 
the  Admiral,  when  he  had  concluded. 

"  Kot  a  bit  of  it,"  said  Bertie,  somewhat  brusquely,  and  to 
the  admiral's  surprise,  for  he  was  not  used  to  being  contra- 
dicted, least  of  all  in  his  own  fashion  and  on  board  his  owu 
vessel,  and  he  did  not  like  it.  But  Bertie,  gentle  and  patient 
as  he  was,  would  not  brook  the  least  snub  to  Criss. 

"  How  can  anyone  be  in  a  mess,"  he  asked,  "  when  he  can 
fly  away  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  without  a  possibility  of  being 
tracked  or  overtaken." 

"  I  see  the  difficulty  plainly  enovigh,"  said  Criss  ;  "  but  it  is 
in  your  power,  admiral,  and  Bertie's,  if  he  will  join,  to  set 
things  all  right." 

"  How  so  ?  I  am  not  here  to  meddle  with  local  politics," 
said  the  Admiral,  who  entertained  considerable  respect  for 
Criss's  millions.  "  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  restoring  dynas- 
ties, or  changing  governments  for  the  folks  here.  That  is  their 
own  affair.  But  I  must  send  an  answer  down.  How  do  I 
know  that  the  foreign  residents  are  safe  ?  " 

"  I  have  just  left  them  returning  to  their  homes  i;ntouched," 
replied  Criss,  "  having  first  seen  the  troops  in  the  trains,  and 
on  their  way  baek." 


BY   AND  BY  227 

"  You  have  done  excellently  well,"  said  the  admiral  ;  "  but 
it  will  not  do  for  me  to  go  home  and  say  that  I  have  been  told 
such  and  such  things.     I  must  report  on  my  own  authority." 

"Then  leave  part  of  your  force  here  ;  at  least  until  tlie  troops 
have  returned,  and  go  with  another  part  to  the  hills,  and  visit 
the  settlers  yourself,"  suggested  Criss. 

"And  how  about  the  mock  prince?  Besides,  I  must  exact 
guarantees  for  the  future." 

"  Let  us  get  the  true  prince  over,  and  he  will  give  them 
to  you." 

"By.  Jove!"  exclaimed  the  admiral,  unconsciously  illustrat- 
ing by  his  choice  of  an  abjuration,  the  marvellous  vitality  of 
the  ancient  Pagan  theism. 

"  But  they  suppose  him  to  be  already  here,"  remarked  Ber- 
tie ;  "and  will  probably  be  exasperated  on  discovering  their 
mistake." 

"  Why  need  they  discover  it  ?"  said  Criss.  "  Admiral,  what 
do  you  think  of  this  plan  ?  That  you  go  and  visit  all  the 
settlements,  taking  three  or  four  days  about  it,  and  letting  the 
authorities  here  suppose  that  the  prince  has  accompanied  you. 
And  in  the  meantime  Bertie  and  I  will  go  to  Jerusalem  and 
fetch  the  prince,  and  put  him  on  board  of  you,  before  he  as- 
sumes the  throne  ?  " 

"  Humph,"  said  the  admiral  ;  and  taking  a  tablet  he  wrote 
upon  it,  and  showed  them  what  he  proposed  to  send  down.  It 
was  to  the  effect  that  he  should  leave  part  of  his  force  to 
threaten  the  city,  and  send  part  to  the  settlements  to  inspect 
the  condition  of  the  foreigners.  On  its  return  they  would  be 
at  liberty  to  reconstruct  the  government.  In  the  meantime  a 
telegraph  to  Europe  must  be  placed  at  the  service  of  the  expe- 
dition, for  which  purpose  he  would  let  down  a  connecting  wire, 
and  mooring  tackle. 

"  Expedition  arrived  off  Bornou.  All  well.  Settlers  reported 
safe."  This  was  the  first  message  sent  to  relieve  anxiety  in 
Europe. 

"While  the  admiral  was  superintending  the  execution  of  these 


228  BY  AND  BY. 

details,  Criss  and  Bertie  conversed  togotlier.  The  matter  was 
one  of  which  they  seemed  unal)h^  to  make  up  their  minds  ;  for, 
addressing  the  admiral,  Bertie;  said, — 

"Admiral,  we  want  your  advice,  not  professionally,  but  as  a 
man  of  practical  knowledge  and  wisdom.  You  may,  or  may 
not  know,  that  ia  this  country  the  prestige  of  the  crown  has 
long  been  bound  up  with  its  possession  of  a  certain  heir-loom, 
called  the  TdUsmaii  of  Solomon.  It  consists  of  an  exceedingly 
magnificent  set  of  diamonds  and  other  gems — crown  jewels,  in 
fact,  of  the  ancient  empire  of  Abyssinia, — whose  royal  family,  as 
you  doubtless  know,  claim  direct  descent  from  Solomon, — and 
now  of  the  united  empires  of  Abj'ssinia  and  Soudan.  I  cannot, 
perhaps,  better  illustrate  the  transcendent  impoTtauce  attached 
in  this  country  to  the  possession  of  this  talisman,  than  by  com- 
paring it  to  the  place  formerly  occupied  in  any  country  by  the 
sacred  books  of  its  religion  ;  as,  for  instance,  in  our  own  land, 
prior  to  the  Emancipation,  by  the  Bible.  We  now  liold  the 
Bible  to  be  of  such  high  intrinsic  value  as  to  be  incapable  of 
gaining  in  prestige  by  being  converted  into  a  Fetich.  It  is 
the  same  with  these  jewels,  only  the  people  here  are  still  igno- 
rant and  superstitious,  and  so  think  more  of  traditions  and  sor- 
ceries than  of  any  intrinsic  worth  and  beauty. 

"Well,  the  Talisman  of  Solomon  has  been  believed  to  be 
lost.  The  prince  himself  supposes  it  lost,  and  mistrusts  the 
stability  of  his  throne  for  want  of  it.  Thus  he  may,  when  it 
comes  to  the  point,  hesitate  to  trust  himself  back  in  the  coun- 
try. My  young  friend  here,  however,  has  pledged  himself  to 
the  people  to  bring  back  not  only  the  prince,  but  also  the  crown 
jewels,  provided  the  dynasty  be  restored.  We  have  agreed  to 
go  and  fetch  the  prince  at  once.  What  do  you  think  about  the 
jewels?  Is  it  better  that  they  come  with  the  prince,  or  after  a 
certain  period ;  and  then  on  condition  of  the  continued  good 
conduct  both  of  people  and  Emperor." 

Criss  could  not  help  smiling  at  this  very  elliptical  statement. 
He  was  not  sure  whether  it  was  by  accident  or  design  that  Bertie 
had  made  the  omission  which  rendered  it  utterly  unintelligible. 

"  It  strikes  me  yqu  are  in  a  second  scrape,  young  sir,"  said 


BY  AND  BY.  229 

the  Admiral  to  Criss.  "  It  is  a  pity  they  are  lost,  for  one  great 
blow  is  worth  any  number  of  successive  taps.  The  prince's  re- 
turn with  the  talisman  they  think  so  much  of,  would  produce 
far  greater  effect  than  any  subsequent  proceedings.  There  is 
nothing  for  it,  that  I  can  see,  but  to  postpone-  the  diamonds 
until  paste  ones  can  be  made." 

This  ingenious  solution  of  the  supposed  difficulty  drew 
hearty  laughter  from  both  Criss  and  Bertie.  The  Admiral 
looking  surprised,  Bertie  hastened  to  explain. 

"We  are  laughing,  Admiral,  at  -my  stupidity  in  omitting  to 
mention  that,  so  far  from  being  really  lost,  the  jewels  in  ques- 
tion are  safe  in  England,  and  actually  in  possession  of  my 
young  friend  here.  How  they  came  so  is  too  long  a  story  to 
be  told  now.  No,  the  question  is,  whether  we  shall  let  them 
remain  there  for  the  present,  or  telegraph  for  them  to  be  sent 
to  meet  us  and  the  prince  at  Jerusalem,  and  then  bring  them 
on  with  us." 

The  Admiral  was  too  stupefied  with  astonishment  to  be  able 
to  make  a  suggestion.  The  point  was  finally  settled  by  Criss's 
remarking, — 

"  I  am  thinking  that  I  ought  to  have  some  guarantee  for  the 
good  conduct  of  the  prince,  as  well  as  you  for  that  of  the  peo- 
ple. So  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  retain  possession  of  the 
jewels  for  the.  present,  and  make  their  return  conditional.  I 
shall  fix  his  coronation  for  the  anniversary  of  his  accession,  and 
if  I  am  satisfied  with  him,  let  him  wear  them  for  the  first  time 
on  that  occasion." 

"  Well,  gentlemen,"  said  the  Admiral ;  "  I  remember  reading 
the  Arabian  Nights  in  my  youth  ;  but  I  do  not  remember  that 
the  Genii  who  played  with  kingdoms  ever  took  the  form  of  a 
young  man  of  twenty-one.  Supposing,  however,  that  I  am  not 
in  an  Arabian  Night  at  this  moment,  and  that  everything 
about  me  is  real  and  genuine,  I  can  only  say  that  the  last  no- 
tion strikes  me  as  an  exceedingly  sensible  one.  When  one  has 
a  hold  on  great  people,  as  you  seem  to  have  on  this  prince,  it 
is  well  to  keep  it.  That  settled,  there  is  no  longer  any  cause 
for  delaying  your  start.     I  presume  you  feel  confident  he  will 


230  BV  AND  BY. 

consent  to  return  with  you  ?  If  he  does  not,  you  must  lose  no 
time  in  telegrapliing  the  fact  to  me,  that  the  return  of  the 
fleet  be  not  nocdlfssly  delayed." 

''Wliatdoyou  think,"  asked  Bertie,  "of  lending  us  an  es- 
cort, Admiral?" 

"  Impossible,  without  leave  from  home ;  and  Jerusalem  is 
about  the  last  place  with  which  the  Council  would  run  the  risk 
of  having  a  misunderstanding.  Besides,  you  must  not  lose 
time ;  and  my  heavily  armed  craft  do  not  sacrifice  everything 
to  speed.  I  shall  not,  however,  hesitate  to  take  upon  myself 
the  responsibility  of  granting  you,  Mr.  Greathead,  the  leave  of 
absence  needful  to  enable  you  to  quit  the  fleet.  And  when  the 
prince  returns,  with  the  approbation  of  the  country,  I  shall  be 
happy  to  join  in  any  demonstration  that  may  both  serve  as  a 
compliment  and  mark  the  termination  of  a  successful  mission." 

So  Criss  and  Bertie  set  off,  Criss  in  his  favorite  Ariel,  and 
Bertie  in  his  more  capacious  vessel,  for  Jerusalem,  Bertie  being 
furnished  with  a  formal  document,  granting  him  leave  of  ab- 
sence from  the  expedition  for  one  week  in  the  interest  of  the 
foreign  settlers  in  Soudan. 


CHAPTER  XL 

The  Prince  desired,  before  returning  to  occupy  the  throne  of 
his  ancestors,  to  fulfil  an  appointment  he  had  made  with  the 
Soudan  Bondholders'  Committee  of  the  puissant  Stock  Ex- 
change of  Jerusalem.  Between  the  fears  entertained  by  these 
of  a  total  repudiation  of  the  debt,  and  the  desires  of  his  coun- 
trymen to  be  relieved  of  the  burden  of  its  interest,  he  hoped  to 
effect  a  compromise  agreeable  to  both  parties. 

Criss  readily  agreed  to  the  delay  of  a  day,  or  even  two,  before 
returning,  as  he  was  anxious  to  visit  Damascus  and  the  Leba- 
non in  order  to  ascertain  some  particulars  about  his  family. 
Bertie  accompanied  him  on  this  quest,  but  before  quitting  Jeru- 


BY  AND  BY.  231 

salem,  they  consulted  a  solicitor  respecting  the  laws  of  inherit- 
ance and  abandoned  property. 

The  solicitor  perfectly  remembered  the  fact  of  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  old  merchant  and  his  family  from  the  country,  and 
said  that  the  property  thus  left  without  a  claiuKint  would  re- 
main in  the  custody  of  the  local  authorities  for  twenty-one 
years,  at  the  expiration  of  which  it  would  be  sold,  and  the  pro- 
ceeds applied  to  the  public  use.  These,  however,  were  liable  to 
be  reclaimed  by  the  natural  heirs  at  any  time  during  a  further 
period  of  twenty-one  years. 

"The  twenty-one  years,"  he  said,  referring  to  a  register, 
"  since  the  disappearance  of  which  you  refer  took  place,  have 
quite  recently  expired.  You  will  probably  find,  therefore,  that 
the  houses  in  question  are  at  this  moment  being  inspected  and 
cleared,  in  order  to  be  taken  possession  of  by  some  incoming 
purchaser.  Property  in  this  country  is  too  valuable  to  be  long 
left  idle." 

It  was  not  without  considerable  emotion  that  Criss  found 
himself  at  length  about  to  visit  the  home  of  his  mother.  Of 
her  unhappy  fate  there  was  no  room  for  doubt.  But  he  did 
not  know  whether  his  father  was  living.  If  he  were,  Criss 
thought,  surely  he  would  put  in  a  claim  for  the  property  of 
his  wife's  father.  If  he  had  not  done  so,  surely  the  fact  might 
be  accepted  as  an  assurance  of  his  death. 

On  enquiring  in  the  proper  quarter,  Criss  found  that  shortly 
after  the  disappearance  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  obtain 
possession  of  the  property  in  question.  It  had  been  done 
through  an  agent,  who  had  kept  the  name  of  his  principal  a 
profound  secret.  The  attempt  had  failed,  owing,  it  was  sup- 
posed, to  the  inability  of  the  applicant  to  prove  himself  legally 
entitled  to  the  succession,  for  the  claim  had  never  been  re- 
newed. 

The  story  told  by  Bertie  before  the  local  court  in  Damas- 
cus created  extraordinary  interest.  Many  of  the  older  mem- 
bers declared  that  they  perceived  a  strong  resemblance  be- 
tween the  young  man  and  the  members  of  the  lost  famil}'.  The 
case  could  not  be  finally  decided  at  once,  but  in  consideration 


232  '  BY  AND  BY. 

of  all  the  circumstances,  and  upon  securities  being  given  ioi 
the  restitution  of  the  property  in  the  event  of  the  claim  being 
ultimately  disallowed,  Criss  was  permitted  to  take  possession 
of  all  documents  and  other  movables  found  in  the  houses. 

These  articles,  therefore,  were  put  into  the  train  (for  this 
excursion  had  been  made  by  railroad),  and  taken  to  the  hotel 
in  Jerusalem,  where  Criss  and  Bertie  spent  a  great  part  of  the 
night  in  examining  and  deciphering  their  contents. 

The  result  of  the  interview  between  the  Committee  and  the 
Prince  had  been  unsatisfactory,  owing  to  the  inability  of  the 
latter  to  give  any  confirmation  of  the  intelligence  upon  which  he 
had  relied  to  influence  their  decision.  The  telegraph  between 
Eornou  and  Jerusalem  had  been  stopped  by  the  revolutionary 
chiefs,  and  the  Jews  knew  that  such  a  result  as  the  restoration 
of  the  Empire  did  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the  Federal 
Expedition.  In  common  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  they 
had  learnt  the  news  of  the  safety  of  the  settlers.  But  the 
Prince  did  not  deem  himself  justified  in  revealing  at  pres- 
ent the  grounds  of  his  expectation  of  a  speedy  and  happy 
restoration. 

He  himself,  in  relating  all  this  to  his  two  friends,  ascribed 
much  of  his  difiiculty  with  the  Board  to  the  hostility  of  one  of 
its  members,  who  seemed  to  have  a  personal  feeling  against 
him  and  his  cause.  This  was  the  President,  a  man  of  vast 
repute  for  commercial  sagacity,  not  famous  for  scrupulousness, 
and  believed  to  be  mainly  of  Greek  origin,  though  naturalized 
as  a  citizen  of  Jerusalem. 

In  answer  to  a  taunt  from  this  personage,  the  Prince  had 
requested  an  adjournment  of  the  Conference,  until  the  follow- 
ing afternoon,  in  order  that  he  might  consult  with  his  friends 
as  to  the  expediency  of  placing  the  Committee  in  possession  of 
further  information. 

The  result  of  the  previous  day's  conference  had  been  to  excite 
immense  interest  respecting  the  affairs  of  Soudan.  The  con- 
fident tone  and  bearing  of  the  fugitive  Prince  had  produced  a 
profound  impression  on  the  Board,  although  its  members  had 


I 


BY  AND  BY.  233 

studiously  concealed  tlie  feeling  from  him.  His  positive  asser- 
tions that  his  father  was  dead ;  that  the  throne  was  awaiting 
his  acceptance;  and  that  the  indispensable  Talisman  had  sur- 
vived one  more  startling  chance,  and  would  be  forthcoming  on 
his  coronation,  had  excited  the  curiosity  of  the  millionaires  of 
Jerusalem  to  the  highest  pitch ;  and  it  needed  only  the  notifi- 
cation which  the  Prince  sent  them  after  again  seeing  Criss 
and  Bertie,  that  he  would  produce  his  authorities,  to  fill  the 
Great  Salon  in  the  Hall  of  Commerce  with  an  attendance 
unprecedented. 

The  question  for  the  money-kings  of  Israel,  whose  fortunes 
were  to  a  great  extent  involved  in  the  stability  of  Soudan,  was 
whether  the  Prince  should  be  regarded  as  virtually  Emperor, 
and  entitled  to  their  highest  consideration,  or  whether  he  should 
be  regarded  as  a  penniless  fugitive,  and  the  dupe  of  unprinci- 
pled adventurers. 

The  Stock  Exchange  of  Jerusalem — a  new  and  magnificent 
building — stands  upon  the  site  once  occupied  by  the  famous 
Temple  of  Solomon,  and  subsequently  by  the  Mosque  of  Omar. 
The  arrangements  of  the  salon  are  such  as  to  give  it  the  aspect 
of  a  court  for  state  trials.  The  place  assigned  to  the  Appellant, 
as  persons  holding  the  Prince's  relation  to  the  Committee  are 
styled,  is  a  small,  isolated  stage,  situated  opposite  the  centre  of 
a  vast  semi-circular  platform,  but  at  a  somewhat  lower  level. 

On  this  platform  sat  the  Committee  and  a  large  assemblage 
of  the  principal  members  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  the  heads  of 
all  the  great  mercantile  houses,  and  the  governing  chiefs  of 
the  Jewish  people.  It  was  an  assembly  representative  of  the 
world's  wealth  of  accumulated  industry  and  realized  property; 
an  assembly  transcending  in  mere  money-power  that  of  any 
government  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

The  meeting  was  only  so  far  not  public,  in  that  the  reporters 
of  the  press  were  not  admitted  in  their  recognized  capacity. 
But  that  the  press  did  not  lack  competent  representatives  on 
this  occasion  may  be  seen  by  the  report  of  the  conference  con- 
tained in  the  following  chapter,  which  appeared  the  same  even- 
ing in  a  special  late  edition  of  the  Zion  Herald. 


234  -  BY  AND  BY. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    REVOLUTIOX    IN    SOUDAN. 


ALLEGED     COUNTER-KEYOLUTIOX. 


IS     IT    A    SHAM  ? 


THE    PRIXCE    AXD    THE    COMMITTEE. 


A    BRITISH    MILLIOXAIRE-AERIALIST    IN    THE    SCRAPE. 


STRANGE,    IF    TRUE  ! 
STRANGER,    IF    FALSE  ! 
WHO    SHALL    BE    KING  ? 


Zion  Herald  OflSce,  10  p.  M. 

We  doubt  whether,  since  the  days  of  Hezekiah,  when  the 
Assyrian  emissary  Rabsliekah  held  his  memorable  interview 
with  "  the  men  that  sat  on  the  wall,"  Jerusalem  has  witnessed 
a  more  remarkable  meeting  than  that  which  took  place  this 
afternoon  in  the  Hall  of  Commerce.  Certainly  the  only  event 
of  modern  times  which  can  parallel  it  in  interest  is  that  of  the 
restoration  itself.  We  have  kept  our  readers  so  well  posted  in 
the  affairs  of  Central  Africa,  that  we  need  not  waste  their  time 
and  ours  in  recapitulating  the  situation  of  which  to-day's 
occurences  are  the  climax. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  on  the  breaking  out  of  the  reA'olt, 
the  Emperor  Theodoros  disappeared,  together — in  point  of 
time,  at  least — with  the  crown  jewels,  which  are  reckoned  the 
palladium  of  the  country ;  and  that  his  son  and  heir,  the  Im- 
perial Prince  of  Abyssinia,  took  refuge  in  this  city.  Our 
report  of  yesterday's  meeting  of  the  Soudan  Bondholders'  Com- 
mittee, conveyed  to  our  readers  the  startling  change  in  the 
demeanor  of  the  Prince,  who,  for  reasons  entirely  unknown  to 
them,  had  suddenly  exchanged  his  role  of  suppliant  for  that 
of  dictator. 


BY  AND  BY.  235 

The  meeting  was  scarcely  less  remarkable  for  the  number 
and  standing  of  the  persons  who  attended  it,  than  for  the 
singularity  of  the  events  which  it  witnessed.  Among  those 
jjresent  were  the  heads  of  all  our  great  mercantile  and  banking 
houses,  numerous  members  of  the  Sanhedrim,  including  the 
venerable  chief  of  that  august  body,  the  representatives  of  the 
allied  provinces  of  Persia,  Arabia,  and  the  Euphrates,  and 
nearly  all  the  foreign  ministers  accredited  to  the  Jewish  Govern- 
ment. The  predominant  expectation  was  that  the  Prince  would 
fail  utterly  to  show  ground  for  the  new  position  he  had  taken 
up,  and  the  betting  was  accordingly  against  him. 

On  entering  the  salon,  which  was  already  crowded,  we  found 
the  Prince  with  two  other  foreign  gentlemen,  one  somewhat 
past  middle  age,  the  other  considerably  younger,  sitting  in  the 
appellant's  box,  awaiting  the  commencement  of  the  interpel- 
lations. These  began  by  the  president  of  the  committee,  Avho 
is  also  president  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  addressing  the  Prince, 
saying  that  the  Board  readily  acknowledged  his  status  as  heir 
to  the  throne  of  Soudan,  and  sympathized  in  his  misfortunes ; 
but  that  before  admitting  his  right  to  represent  that  country 
by  entering  into  business  relations  with  its  creditors,  they  must 
have  sufficient  ground  for  believing,  first,  that  the  Emperor, 
his  father,  was  dead;  and,  secondly,  that  the  country  acknowl- 
edged him  as  successor  to  the  crown. 

Here  the  Prince  rose  and,  bowing  with  dignity,  replied  that 
he  was  now  prepared  to  afford  the  Court  the  same  i-nformation 
that  he  himself  possessed.  He  would  first,  therefore,  present 
to  them  his  friend  Mr.  Carol,  of  London,  and  request  him  to 
state  what  he  knew  of  the  Emperor's  death. 

The  young  man  whom  we  have  mentioned  as  sitting  beside 
the  Prince,  then  rose,  and  stated  that  he  was  ready  to  answer 
any  questions  affecting  the  matter  before  the  Court,  but  should 
reserve  to  himself  the  right  to  be  silent  respecting  matters 
Avhich  were  private  to  himself — a  reservation  at  which  the 
President  very  visibly  arched  his  eyebrows ;  while  the  Prince 
himself  appeared  somewhat  surprised,  not  to  say  disconcerted. 
The  elder  stranger,  however,  unmistakably  betrayed  his  amuse- 


23G  BY  AND  BY. 

nient  by  a  smile,  and  a  glance  at  his  companion,  which  was 
easily  interpretable  as  signifying,  "  Well,  you  are  a  cool  hand, 
young  sir.''  As  the  sequel  proved,  the  occurrence  formed  no 
exception  to  the  maxim  contained  in  our  Jerusalem  Normal- 
school  copybooks,  that, — 

'•'  It  is  easy  to  be  self-possessed  in  the  presence  of  millionaires, 
when  one  happens  to  be  a  millionaire  oneself." 

"  We  will  endeavor  to  respect  the  reservation,"  said  the 
President,  with  the  formal  courtesy  of  the  man  of  the  world 
who  knows  the  value  of  such  a  demeanor.  "  The  Prince  has 
described  you  as  his  friend.  We  will  not,  for  the  present  at  least, 
dispute  the  satisfactoriness  of  his  voucher.  Pray,  then,  be  so 
good  as  to  state  the  circumstances  which  are  within  your 
own  knowledge  respecting  the  death  of  the  late  Emperor  of 
Soudan." 

The  young  man  then  proceeded  to  narrate,  in  a  manner  so 
simple  and  voice  so  touching  as  to  win  all  hearts,  how  that 
about  the  middle  of  last  month,  while  returning  from  a  visit  in 
Central  Africa  to  keep  his  birthday  with  his  friends  in  England, 
and  travelling  as  he  was  accustomed,  by  himself,  in  an  aerial 
car,  he  passed  over  the  Bornouse  capital  while  the  insurrection 
was  in  full  progress  and  the  royal  palace  in  flames.  That  con- 
tinuing his  way  without  touching  ground,  he  chanced,  Avhile 
traversing  the  Sahara  at  a  very  low  altitude,  to  hear  a  sound  as 
of-  some  one  in  pain  ;  and  on  alighting,  found  a  disabled  flying 
machine  of  old-fashioned  construction,  whose  sole  occupant  was 
a  wounded  man.  That  he  carried  with  him  to  Algiers  this 
man,  who  must  otherwise  have  perished  in  the  desert,  and 
deposited  him  with  a  surgeon,  and  would  have  remained  by 
him  to  the  last  had  not  his  duties  required  his  jiresence  in 
England.  He  had,  therefore,  after  remaining  in  Algiers  a 
couple  of  days,  committed  him  specially  to  the  care  of  the 
British  Minister,  intending  to  return  to  Algiers  with  all  speed. 
That  this  intention  was  frustrated,  as  on  Christmas-eve  a 
special  messenger  came  from  the  Minister,  stating  that  the 
man  he  had  rescued  from  the  desert  had  died  of  his  wounds, 
and  bearing  a  packet  with  a  written  communication,   which 


BY   AND  BY.  237 

made  it  absolutely  certain  that  he  who  had  been  thus  picked 
up,  was  no  other  than  the  unfortunate  Emperor  of  Central 
Africa. 

This  statement  was  received  with  profound  astonishment  bv 
the  Court;  but,  what  seemed  most  curious,  by  no  one  was  it 
received  with  such  evident  surprise  as  by  the  Prince  himself. 
It  was  clear  that  even  with  him  his  friend  had  made  certain 
"  reservations,"  and  that  he  was  now  for  the  first  time  learning 
the  particulars  of  his  father's  death. 

"  May  we  be  made  acquainted  more  fully  with  the  nature 
of  the  communication  to  which  you  refer?"  asked  the  Presi- 
dent. 

"  Its  main  purport,"  replied  the  young  Englishman,  "  was  to 
thank  me  for  my  services  in  his  behalf,  and  to  commend  his  son 
to  my  friendship.  The  original  is  in  London  in  keeping  of  the 
lawyers  of  my  guardian — Lord  Avenil." 

Here  the  elder  stranger  whispered  something  to  the  witness 
Carol,  from  which  he  seemed  to  dissent.  He  then  said  aloud 
to  the  Court, — 

"  The  British  Minister,  who,  I  believe,  is  present,  can  state 
whether  he  has  received  from  the  Minister  at  Algiers  the  cor- 
roboration of  my  statement  for  which  I  requested  him  this 
morning  to  telegrajih." 

"  It  is  true,"  said  the  British  Minister,  rising,  and  addressing 
the  Court,  "  that  a  stranger  of  Central  Africa,  evidently  a  man 
of  distinction,  arrived  badly  hurt  at  Algiers  at  the  time  and  in 
the  manner  we  have  heard  related;  but  he  ma-de  no  revelation 
to  the  Minister  concerning  his  name  or  quality.  His  sole  con- 
fidences were  given  to  this  young  gentleman,  for  whose  genu- 
ineness and  trustworthiness  my  colleague  at  Algiers  energeti- 
call}^  vouches." 

Here  the  elder  stranger  rose,  and  said  that  he  was  present 
when  the  packet  in  question  arrived,  and  was  acquainted  with 
its  contents. 

In  answer  to  the  Court's  enquiry,  this  witness  stated  that  his 
name  is  Greathfad;  that  he  is  a  professional  aeronaut,  officially 
attached  to  the  aerial  expedition  of  the  Confederated  Nations 


238  BY  AND  BY. 

to  Central  Africa,  and  at  present  absent  on  special  leave  to 
come  to  Jerusalem.  He  exhibited  a  document  to  that  effect, 
dated  three  days  ago,  and  bearing  the  signature  and  official  seal 
of  the  admiral  in  command. 

A  glance  of  astonishment  ran  through  the  assembly  on  find- 
ing so  stout  a  testimony  to  the  accuracy  of  the  prince's  infor- 
mation, and  finding  it,  too,  in  the  person  of  an  official  of  the 
expedition.  The  President  alone  seemed  iinmoved  by  it.  In 
the  same  tone  of  cold,  measured  courtesy,  which  had  marked 
his  manner  throughout,  he  said, — 

"  It  seems  strange,  to  the  Court  that  your  services  could  be 
spared  so  soon  after  the  expedition  reached  the  scene  of  its 
intended  operations." 

"  Not  stranger  to  the  Court  than  to  myself,"  answered  the 
aeronaut  Greathead,  in  a  loud,  hearty,  abrupt  tone,  which  con- 
trasted curiously  with  the  keen  inflection  of  the  President's 
voice:  "not  stranger  to  the  Court  than  to  myself;  but  my  dear 
boy  here  can  tell  you  all  about  it,  if  he  chooses.  It  is  all  owing 
to  him  that  the  revolution  in  Soudan  is  over,  the  white  settlers 
safe,  and  the  throne  waiting  to  receive  the  new  Emperor  as  soon 
as  he  will  let  us  carry  him  back." 

The  President  did  not  give  the  assembly  time  to  indulge  the 
surprise  it  felt  at  this  speech,  but  addressing  the  last  witness, 
said, — 

•'  You  are,  perhaps,  not  acquainted  with  the  superstitious 
character  of  the  people  of  Soudan.  But  it  is  an  undoubted 
fact  that  no  sovereign  has  a  chance  of  acceptance  unless  he  be 
in  tutelary  possession  of  certain  jewels,  known  as  the  Talisman 
of  Solomon,  from  whom  the  royal  family  of  the  country  claims 
descent " 

"And  therefore  I  have  promised,"  interrupted  the  younger 
Englishman,  "  that,  on  the  occasion  of  his  coronation, — which 
I  have,  in  my  ow^n  mind,  fixed  for  the  first  anniversary  of  his 
accession, — the  Sacred  Talisman  sliall  be  fortlicoming ;  that  is, 
provided  he  proves  by  his  conduct  in  the  meantime — as  I  have 
no  doubt  he  will  do — that  he  is  not  unworthy  of  his  high 
position." 


BY  AND  BY.  239 

And  having  said  this,  he  turned  and  cast  upon  the  prince  a 
glance  of  such  warm  friendship,  as  only  a  long  and  intimate 
acquaintance  would  seem  to  account  for. 

This  speech,  so  extraordinary  for  its  apparent  and  manifold 
presumption,  was  uttered  in  a  simple,  eager  manner,  and  with- 
out a  jjarticle  of  consciousness  of  its  almost  preternatural  bold- 
ness, on  the  part  of  the  speaker. 

The  prince  himself  was  for  several  moments  absolutely  stu- 
pefied with  surprise.  Then  starting  to  his  feet  he  confronted 
the  youth  Carol,  with  an  air  that  demanded  an  explanation 
as  to  who  it  was  that  thus  constituted  himself  the  arbiter  of 
his  destiny.     But  the  young  man  merely  said  to  him, — 

"  'Not  now,  my  dear  Prince.  You  shall  know  all  in  good 
time." 

The  President  overhearing  his  remark,  himself  addressed  the 
witness,  saying, — 

"If  we  are  to  make  the  concessions  desired,  it  is  necessary 
that  we  be  full}^  enlightened ;  and  for  that,  it  seems  to  the 
Court,  no  time  can  be  so  good  as  the  present." 

"  You  forget  my  reservation,"  answered  Carol.  "  I  especially 
exempted  anything  that  touched  upon  my  private  affairs.  All 
that  I  care  to  state  now  is,  that  the  secret  of  the  crown  jewels 
and  their  whereabouts,  has  been  committed  to  me,  and  that  I 
shall  reveal  it  at  the  fitting  time." 

They  had  been  standing  side  by  side  since  the  prince  had 
risen,  and  it  now  became  evident  from  the  whispering  going 
on  among  the  audience,  that  some  startling  suggestion  was 
being  discussed  by  them.  The  whispers  became  general,  and 
then  all  eyes  were  turned  upon  the  pair  in  intent  scrutiny. 
Then  the  President,  addressing  the  young  Englishman,  said, — 

"  Have  you  any  objection  to  giving  the  court  some  particu- 
lars of  your  birth  and  parentage?" 

"I  cannot,"  he  returned,  "of  my  own  knowledge,  give  the 
information  you  ask,  though  no  doubt  I  was  present  on  the 
occasion.  But  there  is  one  here  who  is  both  able  and  free  to 
relate  what  he  knows  about  it."  And  he  indicated  the  elder 
foreigner. 


240  BT  AND  BY. 

"Mr.  Greathead,"  said  the  President,  "will  you  have  the 
kindness  to  give  the  Court  any  information  you  possess  on  this 
liead?  The  birth,  for  instance,  of  Mr.  Carol, — where  did  it 
take  place?" 

The  witness  stood  erect,  and  assuming  an  air  of  the  utmost 
gravity,  pointed  upwards,  and  said  solemnly, — 

" In  heaven !  " 

*'  We  are  aware,"  said  the  President,  "  that  you  are  an  aero- 
naut.    Did  it  take  place  in  one  of  your  own  aeromotives?" 

Everybody,  probably,  except  himself,  noticed  that  the  Presi- 
dent's voice  had  of  late  entirely  lost  its  keenness  of  tone,  and 
his  manner  its  severity. 

"It  occurred  thus,"  said  the  witness  Greathead.  "I,  and 
some  others,  were  stranded  on  an  -iceberg  in  the  Arctic  seas, 
when  a  balloon  was  blown  to  us, — a  balloon  of  old-fashioned 
and  foreign  make, — a  floating,  rather  than  a  flying  machine. 
This  child  was  in  it,  evidently  only  just  born " 

"  And  the  other  occupants  ?  " 

"  When  the  balloon  reached  us  it  had  but  one,  an  old  man, 
an  Asiatic,  who  expired  shortly  afterwards." 

"But — but— you  said  the  child  was  but  just  born.  The  old 
man  could — could — could  not  have  been  its  Mother  !  Where 
was  She,  then  ?  " 

The  loud,  eager,  and  excited  way  in  which  the  President 
jerked  out  this  extraordinary  speech,  his  eyes  almost  starting 
from  his  head,  and  his  forehead  streaming  with  perspiration, 
attracted  the  observation  of  the  whole  assembly.  On  being 
further  informed  by  Greathead  that  there  was  reason  to  sup- 
pose a  woman' had  fallen  out  and  been  lost,  very  shortly  before 
the  balloon  reached  the  iceberg,  he  seemed  to  be  gathering  up 
his  whole  strength  to  ask  one  more  question. 

"  When, — when  was  this  ?  " 

"  Christmas-day,  twenty-one  years  ago." 

At  this,  with  a  cry,  the  President  dropped  senseless  into 
his  chair. 

Fortunately  a  medical  man  was  present,  and  to  him  the  patient 
was  committed,  while  the  people  talked  together  in  groups. 


BY  AND  BY.  241 

Some  who  knew  the  President  intimately,  said  that  it  must 
be  a  heart  complaint,  to  which  he  had  been  liable  ever  since 
a  loss  he  had  suffered  many  years  ago.  Presently  it  was 
announced  that  he  was  better,  and  refused  to  suspend  the  sit- 
ting for  more  than  a  few  minutes,  when  he  expected  to  be  him- 
self again. 

At  length  the  President  announced  the  resumption  of  the 
sitting.     He  asked  the  full  name  of  the  young  foreigner. 
"  Christmas  Carol,"  was  the  reply. 

"I  knew  it !  I  knew  it !  Mr.  President,"  shouted  a  voice  from 
the  back  part  of  the  platform.  And  there  could  be  seen  strug- 
gling to  the  front  the  venerable  figure  of  one  of  our  most  suc- 
cessful, and  therefore  deservedly  respected,  citizens,  well-known 
in  connection  with  the  diamond  trade. 

"  I  knew  it,  Mr.  President,"  he  cried,  "  the  moment  I  saw 
Mr.  Greathead,  the  aeronaut.  To  my  knowledge,  those  jewels 
were  in  his  possession  nearly  twenty-one  years  ago,  having 
been  long  previously  spirited  away  from  Bornou,  and  lost  in 
the  great  volcano  of  the  Pacific.  I  myself  was  the  agent  of 
their  sale  to  the  Court  of  Soudan,  at  the  time  of  the  late 
Emperor's  coronation.  I  ask  now  by  what  devil's  magic  they 
have  again  come  to  light,  and  in  the  possession  of  this  youth  ?  " 
"Do  you  dispute  his  right  and  title  to  them?"  asked  the 
President,  with  a  curious  smile. 

"  It  is  for  me  to  do  that,  if  anybody  may,"  interposed  the 
Prince. 

"And  do  you  dispute  it?"  asked  the  President,  with  some 
perplexing  expression  on  his  face. 

"  I  am  too  much  in  the  dark  to  affirm  or  dispute  anything," 
he  replied. 

Here  the  j'oung  stranger  rose,  and  said  that  he  thought  they 
were  rather  wandering  from  the  main  question.  It  was  neces- 
sary for  the  Prince  to  start  with  himself  and  friend  without 
delay,  if  he  was  to  redeem  the  pledge  which  had  been  given  on 
his  behalf  to  the  people  of  Bornou.  It  was  important,  more- 
over, that  his  return  should  have  the  benefit  of  the  distinction 
which  the  presence  and  homage  of  the  Federal  expedition  would 
16 


2i2  BY  AXD  BY. 

give  it.  He  added  that  the  circumstance  that  the  people  be- 
lieved the  Prince  to  be  at  that  moment  actually  in  the  country, 
and  living  as  a  voluntary  hostage  with  the  commander  of  the 
expedition,  made  any  delay  most  perilous  tq  his  chances.  So 
that,  whether  the  Committee  acceded  to  his  wishes  or  not,  it 
was  better  for  him  to  go  at  once  than  to  wait. 

This  was  a  new  complication,  and  after  listening  to  some 
suggestions  of  his  colleagues,  the  President,  still  with  an  un- 
definable  expression,  but  with  a  manner  full  of  suavity,  en- 
quired of  Carol  how  the  people  of  Bornou  came  to  labor  under 
such  a  delusion. 

"In  the  conference  which  I  held  with  them,"  replied  the 
witness,  "  they  took  me  for  him,  and  insisted  that  I  was  the 
Prince." 

The  singularity  of  the  President's  reply  to  this  answer,  added 
to  the  peculiarity  of  his  manner,  produced  at  first  the  impres- 
sion that  his  mind  was  still  affected  by  his  recent  attack. 

''  It  is  clear,  then,"  he  said,  "that  you  might  return  and  per- 
sonate the  Prince,  and  occupy  the  throne  as  Emperor,  without 
suspicion  or  risk.  We  can  see  for  ourselves  the  resemblance  of 
which  you  speak.  It  is  as  close  as  could  well  subsist  even  be- 
tween nearh'-related  members  of  the  same  family.  For  my 
part,  and  I  have  every  reason  to  feel  secure  of  the  assent  of  my 
colleagues,  I  am  ready  to  grant  the  terms  asked  of  us,  provided 
3^ou  yourself  occupy  the  throne  of  Soudan.  You  evidently 
have  all  the  mental  requisites  for  such  a  position,  and  the 
strange  fatality  which  has  once  more  put  you  in  possession  of 
the  sacred  gems,  marks  you  out  for  the  post  whose  previous 
occupants  have  been  so  ready  to  abandon  it  at  the  first  sign  of 
danger." 

It  was  not  the  first  time  during  this  remarkable  conference 
tliat  the  prevailing  sentiment  had  been  one  of  profound  aston- 
ishment. But  it  was  the  first  time  that  an  expression  of  sur- 
prise had  been  suffered  to  invade  the  self-possession  of  the 
young  Eiiglishnian.  His  voice,  when  at  length  he  recovered 
himself  sufficiently  to  speak,  betrayed  yet  another  feeling  than 
tliat  of  surprise  ;  for  he  spoke  in  tones  of  anger  and  indigna- 
tion, demanding  of  the  President. 


BY   AND  BY.  243 

"  ])o  you,  sir,  when  you  counsel  me  to  a  course  of  treachery 
and  dishonor,  really  know  to  whom  you  are  speaking  ?  " 

"  I  know  that  you  are  worthy  of  a  kingdom,  both  by  merit 
and  by  station.     .Why  refuse  to  be  a  king  ?  " 

The  interest  with  which  this  strange  colloquy  was  listened 
to,  was  of  the  most  intense  description.  Even  those  who  had 
deemed  the  President's  mind  affected,  thought  they  now  dis- 
cerned a  sound  meaning  beneath  his  words.  Whatever  their 
meaning  was,  they  evidently  did  not  strike  the  young  English- 
man as  irrational  or  incoherent.  Eaintly  and  slowly,  yet  with 
intense  distinctness,  he  at  length  said : 

"  No  kingdom  of  this  world  possesses  attractions  for  me.  To 
no  spot  of  earth  do  I  care  to  be  tied.  My  life  and  interest  lie 
yonder,"  and  he  pointed  upwards,  in  manifest  allusion  to  his 
passion  for  atmospheric  yachting.     "  Why  tempt  me  thus  ?  " 

A  haggard  look  came  over  the  face  of  the  President.  He 
shook  like  one  in  a  palsy,  and  his  voice  was  harsh  and  hoarse 
as  he  essayed  to  reply.  He  commenced  a  sentence  and  then 
broke  off,  and  commenced  another  of  different  purport.  At 
length  he  said : 

"Am  I  to  understand  that  you  finally  and  decidedly  refuse 
to  aA'ail  yourself  of  the  chance  I  have  put  before  you  ?  " 

Instead  of  answering  this  query,  Carol  turned  to  the  Prince, 
who  sat  lost  in  amazement  as  to  what  it  all  coiild  mean.  The 
Prince  rose  at  his  look ;  when  Carol,  grasping  one  of  his  hands 
with  one  of  his  own,  and  throwing  the  other  round  his  neck, 
cried : 

"  Fear  not,  my  Cousin  !     It  is  not  I  who  will  supplant  you." 

At  this  arose  questionings  as  to  who  this  could  be  that  thus 
claimed  close  kindred  with  the  best  blood  of  Israel.  It  was 
while  the  two  young  men,  looking  so  marvellously^  like  each 
other  that  none  could  have  told  them  apart,  gazed  into  each 
other's  faces — the  Prince  evidently  bewildered,  as  at  a  revela- 
tion he  could  not  all  at  once  comprehend — that  the  President, 
demanding  silence,  said  : 

"  Christmas  Carol,  now  that  you  positively  refuse  to  enter- 
tain my  suggestion,  I  will  answer  your  question  why  I  tempted 


244  BT  AND  Br. 

jou  thus.  It  is  because  I  am  your  father !  And,  being  your 
father,  partake  the  enmity  which  your  mother's  branch  of  the 
family  bore  to  the  branch  reigning  in  Soudan.  I  have  sworn 
that  so  long  as  that  branch  occupied  the  throne  in  which  it 
supplanted  ours,  Israel  should  deal  usuriously  with  its  people. 
I  would  see  my  son  Emperor — that  son,  who  by  belonging  to 
the  elder  branch,  is  the  true  and  rightful  heir.  Tell  me,  has 
my  revelation  taken  you  by  surprise  ?  " 

"  I  knew  all,  save  that  you  were  my  father." 

"  When  did  3'ou  obtain  your  information  ?  " 

"  Last  night,  from  the  documents  I  found  in  my  grand- 
father's houses  in  Damascus  and  the  Lebanon.  I  learnt,  too, 
what  yonder  diamond  merchant  will  be  interested  in  knowing, 
how  the  crown  jewels  were  saved  from  the  crater  of  Kilauea. 
The  Californian  sovereign  carried  them  in  a  belt  upon  his  per- 
son. His  confidential  agent  and  minister  was  no  other  than 
my  grandfather  himself,  who  had  obtained  possession  of  them 
before  his  exile  from  Soudan,  and  sold  them  to  him.  He  ac- 
companied the  Emperor  of  the  North  Pacific  in  his  flight ;  and 
seeing  them  on  the  point  of  being  lost  when  the  Emperor  fell 
into  the  volcano,  he  darted  after  him  in  order  to  rescue,  not  the 
man,  but  the  jewels,  and  this  at  the  imminent  risk  of  his  own 
life.  And  he  succeeded ;  for  he  grappled  with  the  falling 
monarch,  and  as  they  rushed  downward  through  the  air  to- 
gether, tore  the  sacred  gems  from  his  person,  and  then  let  go 
to  save  himself,  while  the  king  pursued  his  downward  career, 
and  was  lost  in  the  fiery  gulf.  This  have  I  learnt  from  luy 
grandfather's  papers." 

Here  a  pr'vate  but  animated  conversation  occurred  in  p. 
group  in  which  we  recognized  several  of  the  most  distinguished 
members  of  the  Stock  Exchange  and  of  the  Sanhedrim.  They 
appeared  after  a  little  to  have  come  to  an  agreement  on  some 
knotty  point,  for  the  venerable  chief  of  the  Sanhedrim  came 
forward,  and  addressing  the  Court,  said  that  while  in  all  mat- 
ters affecting  the  foreign  policy  of  the  nation,  they  deferred  to 
the  authority  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  it  devolved  upon  him  as 
chief  of  the  home  and  local  government,  to  put  certain  ques- 


BY  AND  BY.  245 

tions  to  the  young  gentleman  respecting  whom  such  remark- 
able revelations  had  just  been  made. 

"And  first,"  he  said,  "  I  have  to  enquire  precisely  respecting 
the  gems  composing  the  sacred  Talisman  of  Solomon.  Whom 
do  3^ou,  sir,  consider  the  lawful  proprietor  at  this  moment  ?" 

"  Myself,  undoubtedly,"  replied  Mr.  Carol,  (who  will  forgive 
us  for  not  encumbering  our  present  narrative  with  his  newly- 
discovered  titles  of  honor).  "  Myself,  undoubtedly.  But  I 
consider  that  I  hold  them  in  trust  for  the  future  Emperor  of 
Soudan." 

The  old  man  shook  his  head,  and  smiled  blandly. 

"  There  is  a  want  of  legal  precision  in  your  language.  Not 
that  this  detracts  from  your  merits,  my  dear  Prince,  as  a 
prince,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  be  the  first  so  to  call  you.  If 
you  hold  them  in  trust  for  another,  they  are  not  your  own. 
May  I  ask  you  to  define  your  title  to  them  more  precisely  ?  " 

"  I  consider  that  I  have  four  distinct  groi;nds  of  ownership," 
replied  the  young  man.  "  First,  I  inherit  them  from  my 
grandfather,  to  whose  property  tbere  is  no  joint  or  rival  claim- 
ant. Secondly,  they  were  found  on  an  iceberg,  when  otherwise 
they  were  hopelessly  lost,  and  settled  on  me  as  a  free  gift  by 
the  finder,  my  beloved  foster-father  and  guardian  here,  Bertie 
Greathead.  Thirdly,  they  are  mine  by  right  of  a  clause  inserted 
in  the  bill  of  sale  by  which  they  were  transferred  to  the  late 
Emperor,  a  clause  reserving  to  me  the  right  of  repurchasing 
them  within  one  year  of  my  coming  of  age. 

''  You  are  a  better  lawyer  than  I  was  giving  you  credit  for 
being,"  interrupted  his  interrogator,  "  though  you  have  failed 
to  perceive  that  all  this  depends  upon  the  validity  of  your 
grandfather's  title.  But,  my  dear  sir,  are  you  aware  that  few 
men,  even  in  Jerusalem,  possess  a  fortune  sufficient  to  purchase 
those  jewels  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  lack  the  means,"  responded  the  young  man,  with 
the  admirable  simplicity  of  one  born  to  vast  fortunes.  "  And  I 
have  yet  another  title  to  them,  and  one  that  renders  it  unneces- 
sary to  rely  on  my  inheritance  from  my  grandfather.  But  for 
me,  they  had   been  lost  for  ever  in  the  great  Sahara.     More- 


246  BY  AND  BY. 

over,  my  right  to  them  was  recognized  by  tlie  late  Emperor, 
both  in  the  fact  of  his  purchasing  them  of  me  at  their  full 
value,  and  his  consenting  to  my  reclamation  of  tliem.  His 
dying  injunctions  prove  this.  At  the  same  time  he  commended 
his  son  to  me.  It  is  at  my  option,  then,  either  to  restore  to 
him  the  jewels,  or  to  give  him  their  equivalent  in  money.  But 
for  the  happy  termination  of  the  revolution  which  excluded 
him  from  the  throne,  he  would,  of  course,  have  preferred  to 
receive  their  value." 

The  Chief  of  the  Sanhedrim  here  raised  his  bent  fonn  to  its 
full  height,  and  glancing  round  on  the  assembly  as  if  with  con- 
scious pride  in  the  supreme  importance  of  the  words  he  was 
about  to  utter,  said  : 

"  Then,  since  these  invaluable  crown  jewels  are  your  very 
own,  as  well  as  means  ample  enough  to  have  purchased  them 
if  they  had  not  been  so  ;  and  since  j^ou  are,  next  to  the  Prince 
of  Abyssinia  and  Emperor  of  Soudan,  the  sole  survivor  of  a 
royal  race  in  Israel,  I,  on  behalf  of  my  brethren  of  the  vSan- 
hedrim,  and  the  people  of  Palestine  as  represented  by  a  quorum 
of  the  Stock  Exchange  of  Jerusalem  here  assembled,  do  invite 
you  to  solve  the  difficulty  which  has  long  operated  to  the 
national  disadvantage,  and  accept  the  throne  of  Syria  and  the 
adjoining  provinces  of  Persia,  Arabia,  and  the  Euphrates.  You 
have  yourself  proved  that  the  Sacred  Talisman  of  Solomon  is 
your  own,  by  a  treble  or  quadruple  right.  The  lawful  possessor 
of  that  talisman  alone  is  worthy  to  sit  on  the  throne  of  David 
and  Solomon,  ruling  tlie  tribes  of  Israel." 

As  he  concluded,  loud  acclaims  rent  the  air,  and  many  a 
hoary  head  bowed  in  thankfulness,  and  many  a  lip  trembling 
with  emotion  uttered  the  ancient  expression  of  supreme  con- 
tent, "Now  can  I  dejjart  in  peace,  having  seen  the  salvation 
of  Israel." 

The  Prince  of  Soudan,  however,  was  observed  to  turn  very 
pale,  doubtless  thinking  that  the  boasted  heirloom  of  his  race 
had  now  in  very  deed  departed  from  him  forever. 

The  first  attempt  of  the  new-found  Prince  of  Israel  to  reply 
to  this  flattering  proposal,  was  lost  in  the  hubbub  of  voices  con- 


BY  AND  BY.  247 

gratulating  each  other  on  the  successful  issue  to  a  long  and 
difficult  search ;  for,  as  all  the  world  knows,  it  needs  but  a 
sovereign  worthy  to  sit  on  the  throne  of  Jerusalem,  to  consoli- 
date a  great  eastern  empire  under  Jewish  sway. 

On  essaying  a  second  time  to  make  himself  heard,  for  none 
heeded  his  answer,  taking  for  granted  its  affirmative  character, 
the  elder  Englishman  was  observed  to  say  something  as  if  in 
remonstrance  to  the  prospective  monarch  of  the  Orient.  When, 
after  this,  he  obtained  a  hearing,  he  said,  with  becoming 
modesty,  that  a  proposition  of  such  magnitude  was  one  for 
deliberating  upon,  for  which  a  certain  time  was  necessary.  Let 
the  meeting  be  adjourned,  and  perhaps  on  the  following  day  he 
would  be  prepared  to  communicate  his  decision  to  the  authori- 
ties. 

The  Assembly  then  broke  up,  without  any  resolution  being 
come  to  respecting  the  express  object  of  its  meeting,  the  greater 
and  nearer  event  having  rendered  cool  deliberation  for  the 
present  impossible.  We  hope  in  our  issiie  of  to-morrow  eve- 
ning to  communicate  to  our  readers  and  the  world  the  great 
news  that  at  length  "a  king  rules  in  Zion,  and  hath  gathered 
the  peoples  under  his  wings/'  as  saith  one  of  our  ancient  poets. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 


It  was  perhaps  fortunate  that  beside  Bertie  and  the  Prince, 
only  one  person  in  the  whole  assembly  caught  the  remark  which 
Criss  had  first  uttered  in  reply  to  the  proposition  last  made  to 
him.  That  person  was  the  President  himself,  who,  fascinated 
as  it  were  by  the  presence  of  his  new-found  son,  suffered  no 
look  or  word  of  Criss's  to  escape  him.  Criss's  exclamation  had 
been  to  the  effect  that  he  seemed  to  have  lighted  upon  a  con- 
gregation of  Judases.  It  was  at  Bertie's  entreaty  that  he 
abstained  from  repeating  the  remark  so  as  to  be  heard  by  all. 

As  the  assembly  began  to  disperse,  a  messenger  approached 


218  BY  AND  BY. 

Criss,  and  said  that  tlie  President  earnestly  desired  liis  attend- 
ance in  an  adjoining  chamber.  Criss  paused  but  to  liold  a  few 
moments'  conversation  with  Bertie  and  the  Prince,  and  then 
went  to  meet  his  father. 

"Child  of  my  Zoe  !"  exclaimed  the  latter  advancing  to  em- 
brace him,  "  the  shock  of  joy  on  recognizing  you  just  now  had 
well  nigh  killed  me.  Even  yet  am  I  feeble  through  its  effects. 
But  you  still  look  sotoewhat  coldly  on  me.  Do  you  doubt  that 
I  am  your  father  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  doubt  it,"  said  Criss,  "  though  it  was  only  during 
the  last  hour,  and  by  means  of  certain  relics  wliich  I  obtained 
from  the  Lebanon,  that  I  have  been  led  to  recognize  you.  This 
portrait  Avas  carefully  treasured  by  her.  It  is  evidently  the 
portrait  of  yourself." 

"  Living  image  of  her  that  you  are,  with  just  a  trace  of 
myself  and  my  own  Greek  lineaments,  behold  here  the  com- 
panion picture  to  that,  the  picture  of  her,  which  has  never  left 
my  breast,  even  as  she  has  never  vanished  from  my  heart." 

And  he  placed  in  Criss's  hands  an  exquisite  likeness  of  the 
unfortunate  Zoe. 

Earnestly  and  tearfully  Criss  gazed  upon  his  mother's  pic- 
ture, but  he  still  failed  to  respond  to  his  father's  demonstrations 
of  affection.  The  latter  perceived  his  coldness,  and  sought  to 
know  the  cause. 

"You  are  reproaching  me  in  your  mind  for  the  neglect  of 
which  3^ou  consider  me  to  have  been  guilty  in  regard  to  you," 
he  said;  "but  believe  me,  I  have  sought  and  sougl)t  in  vain  to 
ascertain  what  had  become  of  my  lost  wife  and  her  father.  All 
that  I  could  ascertain  was,  that  shortly  after  their  ascent  from 
Damascus,  a  tremendous  hurricane  occurred,  and  they  were 
never  seen  again.  You  were  not  born  then,  you  know,  though 
your  birth  was  expected.  As  it  was,  you  must  have  made 
your  appearance  too  soon.  Our  marriage  was  a  concealed  one. 
Zoe  continued  to  live  with  her  father,  who  was  truly  a  man  to 
be  dreaded,  by  me  as  well  as  by  her ;  and  we  were  tortured  with 
anxiety  to  keep  her  condition  a  secret  from  him.  Believe  me, 
I  do  not  deserve  j'our  reproach  on  the  score  of  neglect." 


BT  AND  BY.  249 

"  My  father,"  replied  Criss  with  emotion,  "  you  have  faik^d 
utterly  to  divine  the  nature  of  the  feeling  which  divides  us.  I 
have  to  thank  you,  and  I  do  thank  and  bless  you,  for  having 
infused  into  me  that  admixture  of  Greek  blood  which  has  saved 
me  from  having  a  sordid  nature,  andenabled  me  to  recognize  the 
supremacy  of  beauty  and  goodness  over  rank  and  wealth.  But 
how  is  it  that  you,  who  are  all  Greek,  could  so  far  abandon  the 
traditions  of  your  race  as  to  propose  to  your  newly  discovered 
son  a  course  incompatible  with  honor  ?  " 

"  For  one  side  of  your  mental  composition  you  may  possibly 
be  indebted  to  me,"  returned  his  father.  "I  mean  the  Esthe- 
tic. But  there  you  must  stop.  The  Greeks,  no  more  than  the 
Jews,  are  to  be  credited  Avith  the  other  qualities  you  ascribe 
to  them.  If  Jacob  be  their  type,  Ulysses  is  ours.  Morality 
was  never  our  forte  ;  but  on  the  contrary,  with  all  our  addiction 
to  philosophy  and  art,  we  have  ever  been  an  insincere  and 
venal  people.  No,  for  what  you  possess  of  moral  sentiment, 
you  must  thank  your  mother,  not  me  ;  or  rather  her  mother,  for 
there  you  obtained  your  Teutonic  characteristics." 

"  I  have  Teuton  blood  in  me  !  I  am  indeed  glad.  The  blood 
of  the  race  to  which  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Shelley,  Tennyson, 
and  Goethe  belonged  !  as  well  as  of  the  race  of  Homer,  .^schy- 
lus,  and  Plato  !  in  addition  to  that  of  Moses,  Isaiah,  Jesus,  and 
Paul !  What  a  privilege,  but  also  what  a  responsibility  !  I  am 
so  glad  to  be  a  Teuton !  I  understand  now  the  secret  of  my 
sympathetic  yearnings  towards  the  grandest  of  the  world's 
races,  in  its  combination  of  the  intellectual  with  the  moral ;  the 
first  race  in  which  Conscience  was  elevated  to  its  proper  supre- 
macy." 

"Well,"  resumed  his  father,  "you  see  you  have  judged  our 
conduct  by  some  code  which  finds  no  recognition  here.  Neither 
my  proposition  that  you  should  appropriate  the  throne  of  Sou- 
dan ;  nor  that  of  the  chief  of  the  Sanhedrim,  that  you  should 
retain  the  Talisman  of  Solomon,  to  grace  the  restored  crown  of 
Israel,  rather  than  follow  a  sentimental  impulse,  shocked  the 
prejudices  of  any  of  our  people.  Following  the  divine  law 
anciently  given  to  them,  the  Jews,  now  as  ever,  refuse  to  recog- 


250  BY  AND  BY. 

iiize  as  right  anything  that  tells  against  themselves.  Whatever 
makes  for  them  is  good,  whatever  against  them  evil.  This  in 
Jerusalem  is  the  sole  standard  of  morality.  I,  as  a  Greek,  fol- 
low them  in  this ;  only,  also  as  a  Greek,  I  prefer  things  to  be 
pretty  rather  than  ugly. 

"  Besides,  I  consider  myself  entitled  to  hate  those  who  robbed 
me  of  my  Zoe.  It  was  through  the  persecutions  your  grand- 
father suffered  from  tlie  reigning  branch  in  Soudan,  tliat  he 
fled,  and  she  was  lost  to  me.  It  was  nothing  to  me  tliat  he 
deserved  their  enmity.  Eight  or  wrong,  I  suffered  by  it,  and  I 
resented  it.  But  I  have  been  avenged.  For  it  is  I  who  have 
been  chief  agent  in  grinding  down  their  people  by  taxation, 
and  so  bringing  about  the  revolution  Avith  all  its  dread  results. 
It  is  I  who  have  kept  the  Committee  from  acceding  to  all 
entreaties  for  a  mitigation.  If  I  wished  you  to  supjtlant  that 
branch,  it  was  for  personal  vengeance.  If  I  now  wish  you  to 
become  sovereign  of  this  coimtry,  it  is  as  much  for  the  sake 
of  seeing  my  son  the  instrument  of  their  punishment,  as  for 
any  other  ambition. 

"  And  now  that  we  perfectly  understand  each  Other,  come  to 
my  palace  and  abide  with  me.  Being  my  home,  it  is  yours 
also.  We  shall  have  much  to  tell  each  other.  Together  Ave 
will  pen  the  acceptance  of  the  offer  conveyed  to  j-ou  by  the 
chief  of  the  Sanhedrim,  an  acceptance  which  Avill  make  me 
father  of  a  far  greater  soA'ereign  than  any  Emperor  of  Central 
Africa  can  ever  be.  For  as  king  of  Israel,  the  wealth  of  the 
world  will  be  at  your  command.  At  your  bidding,  mighty 
capitalists  will  loosen  or  tighten  their  purse-strings,  and  the 
nations  that  are  afar  off  will  follow  peace  or  rush  to  war. 
Hail !  Christmas,  Sovereign  of  Judea !  "VMiat  a  coronation 
will  thine  be !  When,  amid  the  glories  of  the  noblest  edifice 
of  the  modern  world,  noblest  in  its  uses,  noblest  in  its  archi- 
tecture, infinitely  in  every  respect  surpassing  its  famous  jjrede- 
cessors  on  the  same  site — even  the  temple  reared  by  him  whose 
sacred  Talisman  will  adorn  thy  brows — Ah !  I  forgot.  Oh,  my 
son,  relinquish  this  infatuation.  Keep,  keep  the  gems,  and  let 
them  not  go  to  the  barbarians  of  Afiuca.     Solomon  himself 


BY   AND  BY.  251 

refused  nothing  to  Ins  father  David,  not  even  his  dying  request, 
involving,  as  it  did,  at  least  according  to  your  code — the  Teuton 
code — crime  and  dishonor.  Surelj'  ^-ou,  then,  as  sitting  on  the 
throne  of  David  and  Solomon,  will  not  have  the  presumption 
to  affect  to  surpass  them  in  virtue,  and  condemn  the  morality 
of  that  great  Semitic  race  whose  hlood  you  share  !  The  cost 
is  indeed  a  slight  one  to  pay  for  such  an  heir-loom.*' 

"We  place  a  different  estimate  on  the  cost  of  such  a  deed," 
replied  Criss,  speaking  with  less  restraint  in  his  manner  than 
before,  for  he  was  beginning  to  regard  his  father  as  partially 
deranged,  rather  than  wilfully  dishonest.  "  But  you  forget 
that  the  objection  I  raised  before  the  committee  was  not 
against  being  king  of  Soudan  merely,  but  against  being  a  king 
at  all." 

"  My  son,  you  will  have  to  forget  what  you  said  on  that  point. 
The  Jews  have  too  long  set  their  hearts  on  precisely  such  a 
solution  of  their  political  difficulties  as  the  discovery  of  you 
presents.  They  will  not  consent  to  waive  their  nation's  long- 
ings in  deference  to  your  fantasies.  Being  in  Jerusalem,  you 
are  in  their  power,  and  should  you  persist  in  your  refusal,  they 
are  quite  capable  of  taking  you  by  force  and  making  you  their 
king.  Even  flight  will  serve  you  little  when  they  are 
determined,  for  Mammon  is  the  god  of  this  world,  and  they 
are  his  priests.  No  nation  can  or  dare  harbor  3'ou  from  them. 
And  I  warn  you  that  I  for  one  shall  not  interfere  with  their 
action." 

"Well,"  said  Criss,  in  a  light  and  cheerful  tone,  "we  will 
not  talk  more  about  that  just  now.  You  can  understand  that 
at  the  heights  from  which  I  am  accustomed  to  survey  the  world, 
its  loftiest  eminences  are  apt  to  seem  very  low.  But  I  really 
must  leave  you  now.  My  friends  will  be  expecting  me  at  the 
hotel.  Farewell  for  to-night,  my  father.  An  eventful  day, 
such  as  this  has  been,  merits  extra  repose." 

"What!  will  you  not  enter  and  sleep  beneath  my  roof  on 
this  the  first  night  of  our  meeting?  It  is  true  I  have  no 
family  to  whom  to  introduce  you.  I  dwell  in  this  palace,"  he 
said  pointing  to   a   magnificent  edifice  before  which  they  had 


2.")2  BY  AND   nV. 

now  arrived,  "solitary  and  sad.  No  new  ties  have  been  mine. 
It  is  as  if  I  had  waited  expressly  for  you  to  come  to  me — 3^011, 
who  ai-e  the  sole  heir  of  my  heart  and  my  wealth.  At  least 
enter  and  eat  with  me,  if  you  cannot  all  at  once  reconcile  your- 
self to  your  new  ties." 

It  was  late  when  Criss  returned  to  his  hotel.  Going 
straight  to  Bertie's  room,  he  roused  him  from  a  light  sleep, 
saying, 

"  Now,  dear  Bertie,  we  must  be  off.  Is  the  Prince  prepared, 
think  you?" 

"Perfectly,  and  impatient  to  start.  He  is  congratulating 
himself  on  having  a  friend  and  relative  in  the  King  of  the 
Jews." 

"Ah,"  said  Criss,  "we  shall  have  to  devise  some  other  means 
for  reducing  taxation  in  Soudan.  Now,  come  softly,  and  say 
not  a  word.  Unless  I  have  been  misinformed,  it  is  necessary 
that  our  departure  be  made  very  much  like  an  escape." 

"  Escape  !     But  will  you  not  accept  the ?  " 

"  Accept !  Why,  my  dear  Bertie,  don't  you  know  I  am  a 
Republican  ?  " 

"  That  may  be  a  reason  for  refusing  to  have  a  King  over  one, 
but  not  for  refusing  to  be  a  King  oneself.  Besides,  in  putting 
back  this  Prince,  you  are  setting  up  a  King." 

"  Oh,  yes.  I  do  not  dictate  to  others.  If  they  prefer  a 
monarch}',  thej^  are  welcome.     Here  is  the  Prince's  door." 

The  three  descended  in  silence  to  the  aeromotive-house,  and 
having  deposited  an  ample  payment  with  the  custodian,  were 
soon  aloft  and  far  away  on  their  flight  across  the  desert  towards 
the  capital  of  Soudan,  the  Prince  travelling  with  Bertie  in  his 
capacious  car,  and  Criss  keeping  near  them  in  his  own  little 
Ariel. 

Ere  they  lost  sight  of  the  lights  of  the  sleeping  city,  Criss 
cast  a  look  back  upon  it,  and  murmured, 

"  Oh,  Jerusalem !  mightiest  upon  earth  in  thy  power  for 
good,  by  means  of  the  wealth  at  thy  command  ;  feeblest,  in  thy 
ignorance  of  that  wealth's  high  uses!  To  think  that  I  could 
stoop  to  be  a  king  of  a  people  who  value  money  for  its  own 


liY  AND  BT.  253 

sake,  and  whose  chief  men  counsel  treachery !  Was  it  for 
this  that  thy  prophet-poets  of  old  heralded  thy  restoration  ! 
Not  until  thou  hast  exchanged  thy  father  Jacob  as  thy  type, 
for  that  nobler  exemplar,  even  the  Son  whom,  while  rejected  of 
thee,  all  other  nations  revere,  wilt  thou  become  in  truth  a 
l\'ople  chosen  and  blessed." 

And  when  morning  came,  and  the  cool  stars  overhead  melted 
away  and  vanished  in  the  hot  desert  blasts,  and  the  travellers  rose 
high  in  search  of  fresh  airs  and  favoring  currents,  Criss  again 
thought  of  what  money  might  do  to  redeem  the  earth,  could  its 
])ossessors  but  consent  to  the  sacrifice ;  and  how,  under  its 
jiresent  misuse,  it  was  little  better  than  a  curse.  And  a  long- 
ing came  over  him  to  bury  all  the  wealth  of  himself  and  his 
race  in  the  sands  of  the  Sahara,  in  the  hope  that,  jieradventure, 
such  descent  into  Hades  of  the  god  Mammon,  might  be  fol- 
lowed by  a  resurrection  and  ascent  to  better  things  for  the 
whole  human  race. 

A  few  days  later,  and  the  universal  press  of  the  world  con- 
tained an  account  of  the  successful  expedition  of  the  Federal 
aerial  fleet  to  Soudan,  and  the  restoration  of  the  Empire.  The 
rejoicings  on  the  occasion  were  described  as  being  of  a  some- 
what novel  character. 

"  Tlie  young  Emperor,"  they  stated,  "wishing  to  imj^ress 
liis  subjects  with  a  sense  of  the  advantages  of  a  higher  civili- 
zation than  they  have  as  yet  attained,  and  anxious  to  lose  no 
time  in  improving  their  condition  (for  it  appears  that  he  has 
developed  a  hitherto  unsuspected  tendency  to  philantliropv), 
requested  the  admiral  to  signalize  his  accession  by  an  exhibi- 
tion of  the  destructive  powers  of  the  squadron. 

"The  admiral,  deeming  that  tlie  ex2)ense  of  such  a  demon- 
stration would  be  ami)ly  compensated  by  its  moral  effects,  con- 
sented, and  was  accordingly  requested  to  destroy  the  poorest 
and  most  unhealth}-  quarter  of  the  Bornouse  capital.  For  this 
comprehensive  measure,  tlie  Emperor  obtained  the  consent  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  district  in  question,  engaging  on  his 
part   to   rebuild  and  furnish   the   doomed  quarter  in  a   greatly 


254  BY  AND  BY. 

improved  fashion,  and  to  provide  for  tlie  popidation  during  the 
interval. 

"  The  proffer  was  accepted,  and  an  evening  fixed  for  the 
pyrotechnic  demonstration ;  the  inhabitants  of  the  doomed 
district  being  first  comfortabl}'  accommodated  in  various  bar- 
racks and  other  public  buildings.  The  admiral  then  detached 
a  couple  of  vessels  for  the  service.  These,  cruising  slowly- 
round  and  round  over  the  town  within  the  assigned  limits,  at  a 
moderate  elevation,  dropped  at  short  intervals  during  a  period 
of  two  or  three  hours,  shells  containing  explosives  and  combus- 
tibles, the  native  troops  being  employed  to  keep  the  fire  from 
spreading  beyond  the  doomed  quarter. 

"  The  inhabitants  seem  to  have  been  so  delighted  with  the 
spectacle,  that  there  is  some  reason  to  fear  that  its  beauty  may 
have  tended  to  counteract  the  wholesome  impression  intended 
to  be  produced,  and  that  an  attack  on  the  white  settlers  will 
henceforth  be  considered  a  cheap  price  for  such  a  display  of 
fireworks.  A  subsequent  examination  showed  that  not  only 
was  every  street  and  building,  no  matter  what  the  strength  of 
its  construction,  utterly  destroyed,  but  the  very  foundations  on 
which  they  stood  were  ploughed  and  dug  up  by  the  bursting 
of  the  shells  after  they  had  buried  themselves  in  the  earth. 

"  It  is  rumored  that  the  sudden  collapse  of  the  revolution, 
and  restoration  of  the  Empire,  have  been  achieved  under  British 
influence,  and  accompanied  by  some  very  extraordinary  circum- 
stances. However  this  may  be,  we  trust  that  the  spirit  shown 
by  the  young  ruler,  and  the  good  understanding  subsisting 
between  him  and  his  people,  will  be  productive  of  the  happiest 
results  to  the  country  at  large. 

"The  Federal  fleet  has  since  returned  home." 


BOOK   IV. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

The  commencement  of  the  reign  of  the  new  Emperor  of 
Soudan  was  contemjioraneous  with  three  notable  events  in 
Europe.     The  first  concerned  Erance. 

After  oscillating  for  centuries  between  a  rule  founded  upon 
the  ignorance  of  its  peasant  masses,  namely,  the  rule  of  a  priest- 
hood that  fostered  and  throve  upon  that  ignorance ;  and  a  rule 
emanating  from  and  sustained  by  the  enlightened  and  naturally 
impatient  denizens  of  its  towns  and  cities, — Erance  at  length 
found  at  her  head  one  who,  while  inheriting  the  most  celebrated 
name  in  her  historic  roll,  possessed  also  the  Conscience,  through 
the  lack  of  which  his  ancestors  had  failed  to  secure  stability  for 
their  dynasty  and  nation. 

A  Kapoleon  had  now  arisen  who  had  the  courage  to  follow  an 
English  example,  and  adopt  the  only  method  that  could  free  his 
country  from  the  evil  which  had  led  to  all  its  misfortunes. 
Seeing  that  a  Henry  VIII.  was  as  necessary  to  complete  the 
Emancipation  of  France  as  it  had  been  to  commence  the  Re- 
formation of  England,  this  prince  determined  to  play  such  a 
part.  It  is  owing  to  this  determination,  and  the  success  with 
which  it  was  carried  into  execution,  that  the  Galilean  Church 
is  now  independent  of-  the  Papacy,  its  priests  deriving  all  their 
honors  and  emoluments  directly  from  the  head  of  the  State, 
with  liberty  to  marry,  and  be  as  other  citizens  in  interest  and 
heart.     But  this  is  not  all.      The  race  of  the  Napoleons  has 


256  BY  -4JVZ)  BY. 

never  been  an  altogether  unselfish  one.  The  example  of  Eng- 
land and  his  own  perceptions  convinced  the  French  ruler  that 
tliere  could  be  no  element  of  permanency  in  a  State  the  bulk  of 
whose  citizens  were  too  ignorant  to  comprehend  the  obligations 
of  citizenship.  It  was  not  enough  that  Napoleon  had  set  the 
church  free  from  Rome ;  he  must  also  set  the  people  free  from 
the  church.  The  second  feat  was  harder  of  execution  than  the 
first.  It  might  suit  the  priests  to  hold  their  functions  and 
benefices  from  a  home  instead  of  from  a  foreign  authority  ;  but 
it  assuredly  would  not  suit  them  to  lose  their  own  authority 
over  their  people.  They  declared  themselves  content  with  the 
change  already  made,  and  wdiich,  following  English  precedents, 
they  called  the  Reformation.  But  the  government  was  firm  in 
its  resolve  not  to  remain  behind  its  great  neighbor  in  respect  of 
that  which  had  been  the  chief  agent  of  her  greatness.  Erance 
must  follow  England  in  having  an  Emancipation  as  well  as  a 
Reformation.  The  National  Church  must  identify  itself  wath  the 
National  School,  and  the  teaching  in  both  must  aim  at  the  free 
development  of  the  understanding  and  the  conscience.  This, 
as  we  know,  involva^d  the  substitution  of  evidence  and  utility 
for  authority  and  tradition,  as  the  basis  of  all  education. 

I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  despair  of  the  French  priests  in 
presence  of  the  necessity  thus  forced  upon  them  of  going  to 
srhool  again  to  unlearn  all  their  old  habits  and  ideas.  The 
Government  was  firm  with  them,  but  it  was  also  tender.  Time 
■was  allowed.  The  old  ones  were  pensioned  off.  The  younger 
adapted  themselves  to  the  new  regime.  And  so  it  has  come 
that  France  now  at  length  sees  her  youngest  generations  grow- 
ing up  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  rational  faculties  rationally 
developed,  and  her  institutions  endowed  with  a  stability  they 
have  never  before  known.  Under  an  educational  regime  which 
repudiates  all  dogmatic  teaching  in  favor  of  that  of  experience, 
her  ancient  race  of  Communistic  Doctrinaires  have  learnt  to 
regard  security  of  individual  property  as  the  first  essential  of 
civilization.  In  short,  France  has,  through  the  education  of 
her  people,  passed  out  of  what  geologists  w^ould  call  the  catas- 
trophic era,  into  the  era  of  gradual  evolution,  long  ago  entered 


BY   AND  BY.  257 

upon  by  the  Anglo-Teutonic  races,  and  to  be  adopted  finally,  as 
we  shall  see,  even  by  the  dark-skinned  Turanians  of  Central 
Africa. 

But  France  was  not  the  last  of  the  Celtic  race  to  tread  the 
inevitable  path  of  modern  civilization.  Ireland  remained.  And 
it  is  to  Ireland  that  the  second  notable  event  of  this  period 
relates.  It  was  a  co-ordinate  of  the  event  just  described  as 
occurring  in  France.  Kindred  alike  in -race  and  religion  with 
France,  Ireland  could  not  remain  uninfluenced  by  the  progress 
of  that  country.  Ireland  suffered  France  to  do  for  her  what 
she  had  persistently  refused  to  accept  from  England.  The 
essential  basis  of  all  modern  civilization  consists,  as  cannot  too 
often  be  repeated,  in  the  early  development  of  the  popular  in- 
telligence. Ireland,  preferring  the  priest  to  the  schoolmaster, 
had  kept  her  people  in  the  same  condition  of  ignorance  as  the 
peasantry  of  France.  France  emancipated,  and  her  people 
educated,  Ireland  must  not  lag  behind. 

But  Ireland  had  not,  like  France,  a  strong  ruler  to  urge  her 
onward.  It  had  long  been  the  policy  of  England  to  let  Ireland 
do  as  she  pleased,  provided  only  she  remained  in  close  political 
alliance  with  her.  Ireland  might  emancipate  herself,  and  Eng- 
land would  rejoice  thereat,  but  could  not  help  her.  So  invincible 
were  the  antagonisms  of  race  and  religion  ;  so  strong  England's 
sense  of  justice  and  respect  for  the  individuality  of  peoples. 

It  was  in  accordance  with  the  inveterate  papalism  of  the  Irish 
character,  that  even  the  *' Protestant "  church  of  that  country 
was  constituted.  A  once  famous  English  statesman,  having 
acquired  power  by  the  popular  sympathies  which  distinguished 
one  side  of  his  mind,  used  it  for  the  gratification  of  the  eccle- 
siastical tendencies  which  had  possession  of  his  other  side. 
Availing  himself  of  a  period  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  then 
existing  state  of  the  Irish  branch  of  the  I^ational  Church,  he 
declined  to  wait  until  the  public  mind  should  be  fairly  en- 
lightened, and  took  advantage  of  a  political  crisis  to  detach 
that  branch  altogether  from  the  nation,  and  erect  it  into  a  sect, 
endowing  it  at  the  same  time  with  a  large  portion  of  the 
National  Church  prc^perty.  Thus,  deprived  of  the  fund  and 
17 


258  BY  AND  BY. 

organization  set  apart  l)y  the  providence  of  previous  generations 
for  promoting  the  highest  welfare  of  its  whole  people  ;  and 
handed  over  almost  helpless  to  the  two  great  religious  parties 
which  divided  nearly  tlie  whole  country  between  them,  the 
progress  of  Ireland  was  for  centuries  put  back.  Her  sole  hope 
lay  in  the  system  of  national  education,  which  the  British 
Government  had  already  set  in  operation ;  a  sorry  reed  to  lean 
upon,  when  the  two  dominant  parties  of  Catholic  and  Protestant 
Episcopalians,  as  they  were  uncouthly  denominated,  were  equally 
opposed  to  the  development  of  the  popular  mind  apart  from 
ecclesiastical  traditions,  and  one  of  them  could  bring  to  bear 
against  such  development  the  wealth  of  the  national  establish- 
ment, with  which  it  had  been  so  unfairly  endowed. 

Spain,  influenced  by  emancipated  Italy,  had  long  been  free, 
and  her  people  educated.  France  and  Ireland  alone  of  Eu- 
ropean peojiles  remained  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Dark  Age. 
The  former  having  now  emerged,  the  latter  ventured  timidly 
to  set  her  foot  on  the  path  of  human  progress. 

Her  leading  sons  said — 

"  Let  us  amalgamate  the  resources  of  all  the  religious  sects 
whose  principles  and  divisions  have  so  long  ministered  to  our 
hindrance.  Let  us  set  ourselves  free  from  the  trammels  of  tra- 
dition, by  remodelling  the  churches  upon  the  basis  of  the 
school,  so  that  we  too,  like  Italy,  like  Spain,  like  France,  aye 
and  like  England,  may  have  one  all-comprehending  national 
organization,  devoted  to  the  promotion  of  our  highest  welfare, 
intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual ;  and  constituting  at  once  the 
national  church  and  national  school  system  of  Ireland." 

They  could  not  say  like  America  also.  America  never  has 
possessed  a  national  church  which,  she  could  turn  to  ac- 
count in  developing  the  national  mind.  Her  young,  it  is  true, 
come,  as  a  matter  of  coiirse,  under  the  beneficial  influence  of 
an  education  provided  by  the  State  on  a  broad  basis ;  but,  leav- 
ing school  early,  as  her  children  almost  invariably  do,  they  find 
no  high  standard  of  knowledge  and  thought  to  sustain  them  in 
after  life ;  so  that  America  is  still,  so  far  as  regards  the  general 
education   and   sentiment   of  her  people,  behind  the  European 


BY  AND  BY.  259 

standard.  Her  own  people,  however,  say  that  it  is  because  they 
have  so  much  land  to  look  after,  in  comparison  with  other  peo- 
ples. Tliis  may  to  some  extent  account  for  the  defect.  Too 
much  of  Earth  is  apt  to  be  an  impediment  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  higher  nature,  which  regards  the  heaven  of  the  Ideal. 

The  third  notable  event  of  this  time  took  place,  not  upon  the 
arena  of  nations,  but  in  a  chamber  in  the  Triangle.  It  was  a 
consultation  between  Christmas  Carol  and  Lord  Avenil  on  the 
subject  of  the  trigonometrical  survey  of  Central  Africa,  which 
was  being  made  by  the  Emperor  of  Soudan,  at  the  instance  of 
his  cousin. 

The  two  former  events  were  in  no  way  connected  with  our 
story.  They  are  referred  to  only  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating 
the  condition  of  Europe,  as  compared  with  that  of  its  compar- 
atively barbarous  neighbor.  Europe,  freed  from  pressure  of 
physical  circumstance,  could  devote  herself  to  matters  of  high 
moral  import;  while  Africa,  as  the  event  last  named  shows,  was 
still  concerned  with  the  material  elements  affecting  her  future 
welfare.  In  short,  much  in  the  same  way  that  a  tribe  of  sav- 
ages now  existing  in  one  part  of  the  world,  represents  the 
former  condition  of  civilized  races  now  existing  in  other  parts, 
so  Soudan  represented  for  us  very  much  the  condition  in  which 
we  were  at  a  time  not  long  previous  to  the  Victorian  era. 

The  survey  in  question  was  sufficiently  complete  to  demon- 
strate the  feasibility  of  an  idea  which  had  occurred  to  Criss. 
As  it  was  a  practical  idea,  and  one  promising  vast  material  re- 
sults, it  was  adopted  with  alacrity  by  Avenil.  To  his  own  sur- 
prise and  delight,  Avenil  found  himself  admiaung  a  A'ast  con- 
ception, and  encouraging  a  vast  project,  that  conception  and 
that  project  having  originated  with  his  dreamy  and  idealistic 
ward.  As  with  all  vast  i:»rojects,  it  would,  probably,  for  some 
time  have  remained  a  project,  had  not  special  circumstances 
occurred  to  hasten  its  realization. 

A  terrible  plague  broke  out  in  Soudan,  ravaging  in  pai-ticu- 
lar  the  plains  which  extend  from  Lake  Tchad  to  the  mountains, 
and   not    sparing   the  white  settlers    on    the    hill  sides.     The 


2G0  BY  AND  BY. 

jilague  was  caused  b}^  an  extraordinary  overflow  of  the  lake  and 
its  tributaries,  which  kept  the  surrounding  country  in  the  con- 
dition of  a  swamp  for  a  much  longer  period  than  was  usual.  The 
overflow  and  the  plague  were  the  circumstances  which  hastened 
the  execution  of  Criss's  project.  This  project  itself  was  nothing 
less  than  the  draining  of  the  Plateau,  b}'  converting  the  river 
Sharij,  the  main  feeder  of  the  lake,  and  the  lake  itself  into  a 
regular  well-ordered  navigable  water  system,  which  should  dis- 
charge itself  into  the  Sahara,  and  either  by  the  deposit  of  its 
sediment  there  form  a  new  delta,  akin  to  that  of  Egypt,  or  flow, 
a  continuous  river,  to  the  sea. 

On  the  breaking  out  of  the  plague,  Criss,  ever  on  the  watch 
for  an  opportunity  of  being  useful,  had  gathered  a  powerful 
staff  of  doctors,  and  transported  them  by  aerial  transit,  with  all 
the  appliances  of  their  art,  to  the  afilicted  region.  As  the  dis- 
ease contained  symptoms  which  were  new,  some  little  time 
elapsed  before  the  precise  nature  of  its  essential  poison  was  as- 
certained and  the  antidote  found.  When  at  length  the  doctors 
were  able  to  work  with  good  effect,  myriads  had  fallen,  and 
among  them  the  whole  family  of  the  Hazeltines,  Nannie's  rela- 
tions. Nannie  herself  escaped  unharmed.  Utterly  forlorn,  she 
accepted  Criss's  offer  of  a  home  with  his  friends  in  London, 
until  at  least  her  father  could  be  communicated  with.  She  was, 
accordingly,  brought  over,  at  Criss's  instance,  by  Bertie  Great- 
head,  and  consigned  to  the  care  of  the  Miss  Avenils,  while  Criss 
remained  at  his  post  of  benevolence  in  Central  Africa. 

Actuated  by  Criss's  influence  and  example,  the  young  Em- 
peror labored  assiduously  to  mitigate  the  sufferings  of  his  peo- 
ple, and  entered  warmly  into  the  scheme  proposed  for  prevent- 
ing a  renewal  of  them.  He  did  not  conceal  from  Criss  the 
passionate  preference  which  he  felt  for  the  achievements  of 
war  over  those  of  peace  ;.  neither  did  he  abandon  his  desire  of 
vengeance  on  his  hated  neighbors,  the  Egyptians.  But  of  this 
last  he  said  nothing ;  for  he  saw  that  at  present  the  stability 
of  his  throne  depended  on  his  following  his  cousin's  counsel, 
and  Criss  had  given  him  to  understand  that  he  would  be  no 
party  to  a  war  of  aggression.     He  had  not  yet  been  crowned, 


BY  AND  BY.  2G1 

nor  had  the  sacred  talisman  of  his  race  yet  returned  to  his  keep- 
ing. The  quiet  determination  shown  by  Criss  in  respect  of 
these  jewels  had  served  to  rivet  yet  more  firmly  his  influence 
over  the  Emperor. 

On  the  approach  of  the  anniversary  of  his  accession,  the  Em- 
peror was  anxious  for  the  ceremonial  which  was  to  complete  his 
dignity.  It  was  with  no  slight  reluctance  and  chagrin  that  he 
adopted  Criss's  counsel,  and  issued  a  proclamation  deferring  the 
event  for  another  year.  "A  coronation,"  said  this  document, 
"  should  be  a  season  of  universal  rejoicing.  The  Emperor, 
sharing  in  the  afflictions  of  his  people,  cannot  rejoice  w^hile 
they  are  suffering,  neither  can  he  call  on  them  to  rejoice 
while  yet  smarting  imder  recent  bereavements.  Let  Emperor 
and  People  continue  to  work  together  for  the  general  good,  and 
when  the  plague  is  happily  stayed,  and  the  memory  of  its  sor- 
rows faded,  then  shall  all  Soudan  join  in  a  grand  festival  of 
dignity  and  delight." 

Criss's  repeated  injunction  to  his  Imperial  cousin  was  in  this 
wise: — "Do  your  duty  up  to  the  highest  point  to  which  it  is 
discernible.  Do  it  because  it  is  your  duty,  as  well  as  that  of 
every  man  to  do  the  best  he  finds  in  him,  and  without  thinking 
of  reward.  Do  your  duty,  and  perchance  a  reward  will  come, 
even  beyond  that  of  having  been  able  so  to  do." 

The  Emperor  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  said  that  he 
should  be  acting  contrary  to  all  the  traditions,  not  of  his  own 
race  merely,  but  of  all  kings  and  emperors  he  had  ever  heard  of. 
oSTevertheless,  to  show  his  regard  for  his  relative  and  friend,  he 
would  do  his  duty  as  thus  indicated. 

Criss  had  an  idea  w^hich  at  present  he  kept  carefully  con- 
cealed in  his  own  breast.  He  also  had  information  which  he 
with  equal  care  strove  to  keep  from  reaching  the  Emperor.  The 
idea  was  to  utilize  the  Eiver  i^iger  in  the  regeneration  of 
Africa,  by  borrowing  at  least  a  portion  of  its  abounding  waters, 
and  turning  them,  at  the  northernmost  point  of  their  vast  bend, 
into  the  thirsty  Sahara,  to  swell  the  stream  to  be  drawn  from 
Lake  Tchad.  The  information  was  concerning  the  disposition 
of  the  people  of  the  great  congeries  of  States,  of  which  Tim- 


262  BY  AND  BY. 

buctoo  is  the  chief,  towards  a  political  union  with  the  Empire 
of  Central  Africa. 

The  fame  of  the  young  Emperor's  conduct  since  his  accession, 
especially  in  regard  to  the  plague,  had  spread  far  and  wide,  and 
won  for  him  a  victory  which  not  all  the  arms  of  his  predeces- 
sors had  been  able  to  accomplish.  To  add  to  their  dominions 
the  teeming  and  wealthy  provinces  of  the  Niger,  with  its  an- 
cient and  famous  ca2)ital,  and  extend  their  sway  from  the  Red 
Sea  to  the  Atlantic,  had  for  generations  been  the  chief  ambition 
of  the  reigning  house  of  Abyssinia.  The  force  of  virtue  was 
now  to  accomplish  a  conquest  denied  to  the  force  of  arms. 
Timbuctoo,  the  Mecca  of  the  myriad  caraA-ans  of  pilgrim  mer- 
chants, who,  starting  from  Morocco  on  their  camel-ships,  trav- 
ersed the  yellow  desert  to  the  wondrous  region  of  gold  and 
ivory,  and  arriving  on  the  banks  of  the  Niger,  greeted  it  as  a 
sacred  stream  ;  Timbuctoo,  once  a  favorite  abode  of  civilization, 
religion,  and  learning,  and  still  a  stronghold  of  Islam,  was 
about  to  stretch  out  its  hands  to  the  chief  of  a  rival  people 
and  creed,  and  say,  "  Rule  over  us,  and  let  us  be  thy  people." 
Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  had  Conduct  thus  incontro- 
vertibly  demonstrated  itself  to  be  more  than  Creed,  in  its  power 
to  produce  peace  and  good  will  among  men. 

The  young  Emperor,  while  surprised  at  the  fame  of  his  good 
deeds,  had  no  idea  of  the  practical  shape  tliat  fame  was  about 
to  take.  Criss,  whose  Ariel  was  by  this  time  known  through- 
out the  whole  of  Soudan,  from  the  Straits  of  Bab  el  IMandeb  to 
the  sliores  of  Senegambia,  and  who  was  everywhere  recognized 
as  the  Empoi-or's  cousin  and  friend,  had  hold  many  a  secret  con- 
ference with  the  leading  men  of  the  Niger  district.  The  benefi- 
cence of  the  new  regime  had  already  won  them,  and  Criss's 
foreshadowing  of  the  mighty  works  in  contemplation  for  the  re- 
demption of  the  Plateau  from  the  physical  evils  which  beset  it, 
made  them  eager  to  see  their  country  also  in  the  enjoyment  of 
like  blessings.  It  was  made  plain  to  Criss  that,  did  he  will  it, 
he  might  himself  become  their  king.  Even  to  the  chiefs  of 
Timbuctoo,  he  said  no  word  to  indicate  his  designs  upon  the 


BY  AND  BY.  2G3 

Niger.  That  must  be  a  matter  of  after  deliberation,  when  the 
peoples  should  be  united  under  the  same  scejitre.  The  very 
idea  of  being  deprived  of  even  a  part  of  their  river,  would,  in 
the  absence  of  explanation  and  information  sufficient  to  recon- 
cile them  to  it,  inevitably  produce  a  reaction  in  their  senti- 
ments. 

Criss  contrived  that  the  intelligence  of  the  union  of  the 
provinces  of  the  Niger  with  the  Empire  of  Soudan,  should  be 
made  known  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  the  greatest  effect 
upon  the  Emperor  and  the  world  in  general.  The  long-wished- 
for  ceremonial  of  the  Coronation  was  signalized,  not  only  by  the 
restoration  of  the  sacred  gems  to  the  imperial  diadem,  but  by 
the  presentation  of  the  homage  of  the  representatives  of  all  the 
provinces  of  Central  Africa,  to  the  Emperor  of  their  hearts  and 
their  choice. 

Before  finally  giving  in  their  adherence,  the  new  provinces  had 
made  one  stipulation — that  their  religion  should  be  respected. 
The  Emperor's  reply,  dictated  by  Criss,  had,  wonderful  to  say, 
given  complete  satisfaction,  alike  to  the  intelligent  and  to  the 
fanatic.  He  had  told  them  that  he  regarded  it  as  his  business 
as  Emperor,  to  punish  offences  against  man  ;  it  was  for  God  to 
deal  with  offences  against  Himself,  and  this  was  a  function 
which  no  man  could  usurp  without  being  guilty  of  blasphemy. 

Many  nations  sent  their  congratulations  to  the  young  Empe- 
ror. Tlie  arrival  at  Bornou  of  the  various  ambassadors  and 
their  suites,  in  gorgeous  aerial  conveyances,  from  all  parts  of 
the  world,  filled  the  multitudes  with  admiration,  and  eagerness 
for  liberty  to  navigate  the  air  themselves.  They  were  given  to 
understand  that  when  they  were  sufficiently  educated  and 
civilized  to  enter  the  Confederacy  of  the  Nations,  they  also 
should  be  entrusted  with  the  same  high  privilege  of  navigating 
the  atmosphere — the  kingdom  of  the  heavens  being  open  only 
to  those  who  knew  how  to  use  the  earth  without  abusing  it. 

The  demeanor  of  the  young  Emperor  towards  the  ambassa- 
dors was  ever\-thing  that  Criss  could  wish,  with  one  exception. 
His  feelings  towards  Egypt  did  not  allow  him  to  pay  the  same 


264  BY  AND  BY. 

respect  to  her  representative  as  to  the  rest.  Indeed,  to  speak 
precisely,  the  Emperor  showed  such  scant  courtesy  to  the 
Egyptian  ambassador,  as  to  convince  Criss  that  his  disposition 
still  retained  a  considerable  modicum  of  the  ancient  barbarism 
of  his  race.  He  did  not,  however,  despair  of  ultimately  eradi- 
cating it. 


«  » « »  » 


CHAPTER  11. 

Xaxxie  was  now  an  orphan.  The  intelligence  brought  her 
no  grief.  She  was  penniless  ;  but  she  cared  not  for  it.  If  the 
w^orld  had  no  place  for  a  young,  beaiitiful,  vivacious  woman, 
the  sooner,  thought  Nannie,  she  quitted  it  the  better.  Her 
business  was  to  love  and  be  loved,  and  a  fig  for  the  civilizations 
if  they  required  more  of  her  in  order  to  live.  Men,  indeed ! 
TNTiat  W'ere  men  for,  except  to  support  women  ?  Better  go 
back  to  her  country — Scotland  or  Soudaai — and  take  the  charity 
of  those  who  knew  her  family,  than  study  and  toil,  and  be  dull 
and  stupid,  and  hate  everything,  and  be  cared  for  by  none — 
not  even  by 

And  Nannie's  tirade  ended  in  a  burst  of  tears,  much  to  the 
astonishment  of  Susanna  Avenil,  who  shook  her  head  and 
looked  grave  for  a  considerable  period  before  venturing  a  word 
in  mitigation  of  a  frame  of  mind  so  utterly  incomprehensible  to 
her. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  child,"  she  at  length  observed.  "  Men  now- 
a-days  are  apt  to  fall  in  love  with  women  for  the  capacities  of 
their  minds  and  the  dispositions  of  their  hearts,  and  not  for 
their  faces  merely,  no  matter  how  charming  they  may  be.  I 
doubt  much  whether  even  your  sweet  face  will  win  a  man  really 
worth  the  having.  Besides,  j^our  self  respect  must  prevent  you 
from  making  yourself  dependent  upon  such  a  chance.  Women 
in  our  times  are  above  trusting  for  the  means  of  existence  to 
the  favor  of  anyone,  least  of  all  to  that  of  a  member  of  the  rival 
sex," 


BY  AND  BY.  2G5 

Nannie's  only  answer  was  a  pout  of  such  exquisite,  petulant 
loveliness,  that  Mistress  Avenil  could  not  help  smiling,  and 
saying,— 

"  Well,  Nannie  dear,  men  are  foolish  sometimes ;  and  if  you 
look  like  that,  there  is  no  knowing  what  they  may  not  be  in- 
clined to  do.  But  it  is  not  as  a  woman,  but  as  a  dear  and 
naught}^  child  that  you  will  be  loved.  I  suspect  I  shall  have  to 
turn  you  over  to  masculine  treatment  and  advice,  ere  joii  sober 
down  into  a  practical  being.     Now  my  brother " 

"  Oh,  no,  no,"  exclaimed  Nannie ;  "  he  is  much  too  for- 
midable a  personage  to  be  troubled  about  me." 

"  Well,  you  are  fond  of  Mr.  Greathead — " 

"Yes,  I  am  fond  of  Mr.  Greathead.     He  likes  me  too." 

"  Well,  perhaps  his  advice  will  be  more  welcome  than  mine." 

"  I  didn't  know  he  was  at  home." 

"  He  is  coming  back  very  soon,  on  a  commission  from  Mr. 
Carol,  who  I  am  sure  will  be  glad  to  hear  you  have  consulted 
with  Mr.  Greathead,  and  begun  to  learn  something  useful " 

"  I  don't  care  to  make  Mr.  Carol  glad  one  bit,"  said  Nannie, 
firmly.  "  If  he  cares  enough  about  me  to  be  glad,  why  does  he 
go  away  and  stay  so  long  without  coming  to  see  me  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Carol  has  much  to  do  in  the  world.  He  is  not  one  to 
neglect  his  duties,  even  for  the  pleasure  your  society  might 
afford  him.  Besides,  he  no  doubt  thinks,  if  he  thinks  about 
you  at  all,  that  you  are  too  much  occupied  with  your  studies  to 
know  whether  he  is  absent  or  present." 

"  Is  he — is  Mr.  Carol  really  a  man  ?  "  asked  Nannie.  "  He 
makes  me  think  sometimes  that  he  must  be  something  like  the 
angels- he  meets  up  in  the  sky.  He  is  always  thinking  of  duty, 
and  doesn't  care  for  people,  I  mean  for  anybody  in  particular." 

"  I  really  must  tell  him  of  your  serious  impeachment  of  his 
humanity,"  said  Susanna ;  "  perhaps  it  will  lead  him  to  turn 
over  a  new  leaf,  and  enact  some  other  character." 

"  Do,"  said  Nannie,  "  I  don't  like  anyone  I  like  to  be  cold 
blooded." 

"  I  am  glad  you  like  him,  for  I  am  sure  you  ought,  if  only  in 
gratitude." 


2GG  BY  AND  BY. 

"I  wish  you  hadn't  said  that.  One  doesn't  like  people 
through  gratitude.  But  I  like  him  well  enough  not  to  mind 
owing  him  a  kindness.  I  hope  he  won't  think  I  like  him  for 
gratitude." 

"But  you  do  not  like  him  well  enough  to  do  what  you  don't 
like  yourself,  to  please  him  ?" 

"  You  mean  ahout  these  stupid  hooks  and  tasks.  Anybody 
who  likes  me,  ought  to  like  me  as  I  am,  and  not  want  to  make 
me  different.     That  is  liking  some  one  else,  not  me." 

"My  idea  of  liking  a  person,"  said  Mistress  Avenil,  "is  try- 
ing to  please  them  by  doing  as  they  wish." 

"  And  my  idea,"  returned  the  indomitable  Nannie,  "  is 
making  them  like  me  whether  I  try  to  please  them  or  not." 

It  passed  the  ability  of  the  whole  Avenil  family  to  under- 
stand Nannie.  They  could  not  deny  her  native  quickness  of 
comprehension,  whenever  she  gave  a  moment's  attention  to  any 
of  their  occupations,  but  she  seemed  utterly  incapable  of  sub- 
mitting to  the  discipline  of  training,  so  as  to  learn  anything 
thoroughly.  Yet,  while  indifferent  to  the  whole  range  of 
artistic  or  scientific  acquirements,  in  whatever  related  to 
womanly  airs  and  graces  she  was  a  born  adept.  Her  perception 
of  the  harmonious  in  color  and  elegant  in  form  was  marvellous 
and  unerring.  Bessie  Avenil  declared  that  she'  defrauded  socie- 
^y  in  not  being  a  milliner.  Her  intuitions  as  to  character  were 
like  sudden  inspirations.  The  younger  Avenil  girls  took  to  her 
as  a  geologist  to  a  lirst  discovered  specimen  of  an  extinct  spe- 
cies ;  shewing  her  all  the  kindness  in  their  power  by  having  her 
to  stay  with  them  in  return,  and  affording  her  every  facility 
for  acquiring  knowledge  and  skill  in  the  various  vocations 
wherewith  they  themselves  had  been  brought  up  to  minister  to 
their  own  wants  and  the  requirements  of  the  community. 

But  town  life  and  town  arts  did  not  suit  Nannie.  She  was 
of  the  wild,  and  loved  only  the  open  country.  The  difference 
between  the  pursuits  of  town  and  those  of  country  Avas  to  her 
as  the  difference  between  death  and  life.  It  thus  came  that 
whenever  liertie  was  at  his  residence  on  the  Surrey  Downs,  she 


BY  AND  BY.  267 

made  Ariel  Cottage  her  home.     He  was  as  a  father  to  her,  and 
M'lienever  she  saw  Criss  it  was  in  Bertie's  presence. 

Criss  had  a  charming  place  of  his  own  not  far  from  his  old 
friend,  consisting  of  a  mansion  and  garden,  but  Nannie  had  as 
yet  scarcely  seen  the  interior,  and  the  owner  was  rarely  in  it 
for  many  days  together. 

Criss's  life  lay  now  between  England  and  Central  Africa, 
though  his  thouglits  often  turned  toward  Jerusalem.  Once, 
and  once  only,  was  he  on  the  point  of  revisiting  the  Jewish 
capital.  His  father  had  written  to  him  saying  that  the  offer  of 
the  throne  was  the  result  of  tlie  sudden  access  of  enthusiasm, 
excited  by  the  discovery  of  a  scion  of  the  ancient  royal  race  of 
Israel  in  one  so  fitted  by  wealth  and  bearing,  to  grace  it.  There 
was  little  chance,  he  thought,  of  the  offer  being  renewed ;  and 
it  would  be  a  crowning  joy  to  his  life  to  see  his  long-lost  son  at 
home  in  his  father's  house.  His  health,  he  said,  was  terribly 
broken,  and  in  any  case  it  could  not  be  long  before  Criss  came 
into  his  paternal  inheritance. 

On  receipt  of  this,  Criss  made  up  his  mind  to  start  for  Jeru- 
salem. He  first  took  the  precaution,  however,  of  consulting  a 
confidential  agent  there  respecting  the  probability  of  his  being 
mofested  by  the  Jews  with  a  view  to  the  execution  of  their 
scheme.  The  information  he  received  was  of  so  suspicious  a 
character  that  it  caused  him  to  delay  until  he  could  be  quite 
sure  of  his  safety  from  any  plot.  Indeed  it  imjilicated  in  no 
doubtful  manner  his  own  father,  and  in  a  degree  and  manner 
not  yet  clear,  the  young  Emperor  of  Soudan.  It  was  while 
Criss  was,  corresponding  with  his  father,  that  the  latter  was 
carried  off  by  a  sudden  return  of  his  heart  complaint. 

Though  much  disappointed  by  his  son's  persistent  refusal  to 
come  into  liis  schemes,  he  left  him  his  blessing  and  his  millions. 
And  it  was  long  before  anything  more  was  heard  to  justify  the 
suspicions  which  had  been  raised  respecting  any  plot  in  which 
Jerusalem  was  concerned. 

Criss  seemed  to  have  realised  the  fact  of  his  relationsliip  too 
slightly  to  be  seriously  affected.  It  was  an  acquaintance  rather 
than  a  parent  that  he  had  lost,  and  that  an  acquaintance  acci- 


2G8  BT  AND  BY. 

dentally  and  inconveniently  thrust  upon  him.  Not  only  had 
no  opportunity  been  given  for  the  tie  of  nature  to  develop  into 
one  of  affection  and  esteem,  but  there  seemed  little  probability 
that  it  ever  would  have  done  so.  Of  his  mother  Criss  had  ever 
thought  with  much  yearning ;  but  so  far  from  this  being  so 
"with  regard  to  his  father,  he  had,  by  some  instinct  for  which  he 
could  not  account,  come  to  look  upon  himself  as  in  a  measure 
exempt  from  the  condition  of  generation  by  double  procession 
ordinarily  imposed  upon  mortals.  It  may  be  that  his  own  mind 
was  wont  so  vividly  to  personify  Nature,  especially  in  its 
creative  aspect,  as  to  make  him,  in  the  absence  of  other  parents, 
feel  himself  to  be  derived  directly  from  it. 

It  never  occurred  to  Criss  that  his  kindness  to  Nannie  might 
entail  upon  him  any  responsibility  in  regard  to  her  future.  He 
took  it  for  granted  that  under  the  sage  tuition  of  his  friends, 
and  the  sobering  influences  of  English  civilization,  the  pretty 
wayward  child  would  soon  learn  to  follow  an  even  course  of  life, 
engaged  in  the  ordinary  duties  and  pleasures  of  the  young 
gentlewoman  of  the  period,  and  in  the  event  of  marriage  over- 
taking her,  accepting  her  fate  with  a  quiet  gladness.  It  was 
only  by  slow^  degrees  that  Criss's  friends  learnt  to  comprehend 
her  character,  and  to  discern  the  ruling,  though  to  herself  un- 
conscious, motiA'e  of  her  demeanor. 

Bertie  Greathead,  now  well  advanced  in  middle  age,  watched 
Nannie  long  and  anxiously  before  the  truth  dawned  upon  him. 
Her  preference  for  the  freedom  of  a  country  life  did  not  appear 
to  him  a  sufficient  reason  why  she  should  never  be  so  happy 
as  when  enacting  tlie  part  of  mistress  of  his  cottage.  The 
dwelling  itseK  was  plain  of  aspect  and  devoid  of  luxury.  His 
household  and  requirements  were  of  the  simplest.  He  himself 
made  no  jjretence  to  be  other  than  an  honest,  simple,  tender- 
hearted man,  of  quiet  and  meditative  habit.  Yet  Nannie  would 
sulk  and  look  cross  whenever  he  left  home,  and  she  had  to 
return  to  her  friends  in  London ;  and  beam  with  gladness  when 
his  return  enabled  her  to  visit  the  cottage  again.  Next  to 
Criss,  he  was  clearly  the  only  person  she  cared  to  be  with.    And 


BT  AND  BY.  2C9 

even  for  Criss  she  seemed  scarcely  to  care  when  she  met  him  in 
the  society  of  the  Triangle,  while  when  on  the  Downs  with  him 
she  was  hlithe  and  happy  as  a  bird. 

Bertie  took  occasion  one  evening  in  the  Cottage  to  twit  her 
with  her  unnatural  preference  for  an  ordinary  dwellingplace 
and  the  society  of  a  dull  old  man,  to  the  brilliance  and  anima- 
tion of  the  Triangle.  Nannie  replied  that  she  knew  where  she 
was  happiest,  and  sa\v  nothing  odd  in  her  not  caring  to  be 
among  people  who  were  so  clever  and  learned  and  civilized,  that 
they  looked  upon  her  as  a  sort  of  natural  curiosity ;  and  that 
when  she  had  a  friend,  she  liked  to  have  him  all  to  herself, 
instead  of  sharing  his  attention  with  other  people.  It  was  not 
in  "society"  that  she  first  knew  "Mr.  Carol,"  as  she  was  obliged 
to  call  him  in  this  stupid  formal  life,  and  it  was  not  in  "  society  " 
that  she  cared  to  see  him.  She  was  much  happier  to  be  alone 
there,  and  have  Criss, — yes,  she  would  call  him  Criss, — all  to 
herself,  or  at  least  with  only  Mr.  Greathead  besides. 

Nannie's  greatest  delight  was  to  be  seen  Avalking  or  driving 
with  Criss.  She  was  perfectly  aware  of  the  admiration  she 
excited,  an  admiration  which  had  attracted  many  most  eligible 
3'oung  men  to  her  side,  only  to  be  repulsed  with  the  coolest 
disdain.  But  by  the  side  of  Criss  she  fairly  swelled  with  pride, 
and  no  smallest  item  of  the  sensation  they  produced  was  lost 
upon  her.  They  certainly  make  a  wondrously  remarkable 
couple  ;  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Nannie  knew  how  much 
was  contributed  to  the  effect  by  Criss's  own  appearance. 

"  I  like  dark  men.  I  look  best  beside  a  dark  man.  It  needs 
the  contrast  to  set  me  off  properly.  He  looks  better,  too,  l)e- 
side  a  fair  woman." 

That  was  her  waj'  of  putting  it.  But  truly  Criss's  luminous 
soul  shining  through  his  almost  Oriental  skin,  imparted  to  him 
an  aspect  sufficiently  notable  when  compared  with  ordinary 
folk,  without  Nannie's  angelic  radiance  to  heighten  the  contrast. 

As  time  went  on,  and  Bertie's  advancing  age  made  him  with- 
draw himself  more  and  more  from  active  life,  and  together  with 
Nannie,  he  passed  more  and  more  of  his  time  at  the  Cottage,  it 


270  BY  AND  BY. 

became  plain  to  him  that  her  moods  were  coming  to  he  wholly 
dependent  upon  Criss.  His  presence  made  her  an  embodied 
joy ;  his  absence,  a  picture  of  dull  despair.  Whether  consciously 
or  unconsciously  to  herself,  he  had  become  the  object  of  her 
life ; — he  in  whose  own  life  probably  the  last  possible  object 
was  a  woman. 

As  the  Avenils  had  failed,  so  did  Bertie  fail,  to  induce  Nannie 
to  occupy  herself  with  any  sort  of  work  or  study.  They  sought 
for  indications  of  some  native  bias  which  might  be  turned  to 
account,  but  could  detect  none,  except  a  certain  fondness  for 
children  which  led  her  to  delight  in  decorating  with  ornaments 
an}'  she  could  get  hold  of;  that  is,  any  that  were  pretty,  for 
with  her  personal  beauty  was  indispensable.  Her  kind  critics 
were  struck,  too,  Avith  her  preference  for  infants  over  older 
children,  and  a  keener  analj'sis  made  the  discovery  that  the 
maternal  instinct  rivalled  in  her  the  instinct  which  made  her 
desire  to  be  attractive  to  the  opposite  sex.  She  loved  babies 
as  children  love  dolls,  and  boasted  that  no  one  else  could  handle 
them  as  well  as  she  did.  It  was  the  difference  between  her 
genuine  unsophisticated  mode  of  expressing  her  nature,  and 
that  of  the  women  of  the  older  civilization,  which  prevented 
the  mystery  of  Nannie's  character  from  being  sooner  revealed. 
So  hard  is  it  for  confirmed  complexity  to  comprehend  the  simple 
elements  even  of  its  own  constitution. 

Bertie  alone  ventured  to  say  a  word  to  Criss  respecting  his 
protegee.  She  chanced  to  enter  the  room  while  they  were 
speaking  of  her,  and  her  strange  preference  for  so  quiet  a  life 
as  that  of  the  Cottage.  Criss  took  the  opportunity  to  inquire 
of  her  whether  there  was  anything  she  needed  to  add  to  her 
comfort.  Nannie  said  she  supposed  not.  She  didn't  know  of 
an^'thing,  at  any  rate  of  anything  that  he  could  provide.  And 
then  she  turned  very  red,  and  with  a  sort  of  hysterical  sob, 
hurried  away  from  the  room. 

Distressed  and  perplexed,  Criss  turned  to  Bertie  for  an  ex- 
planation.    Had  anything  occurred  to  trouble  her  ?  he  enquired. 

"  I  cannot   say,   indeed,"  replied  Bertie.      "  Young  women 


BY  AND  BY.  271 

have  never  made  a  branch  of  my  studies.  Ask  herself,  quietly 
when  alone,  for  instance,  while  walking  in  the  garden  some 
evening.  Your  return  always  elates,  as  much  as3^our  departure 
depresses  her.  My  impression  is  that  she  thinks  of  nothing 
else  from  morning  till  night.  Indeed,  I  don't  see  how  she  can, 
for  she  really  has  nothing  else  to  occupy  her  thoughts.  She  is 
a  very  woman,  so  far  as  I  understand  woman's  nature  ;  and  a 
woman  of  women  in  her  nature." 

"And  I  was  looking  upon  her  as  hut  a  child,"  said  Criss. 

"The  young  men  of  the  neighborhood  and  the  Triangle  show 
more  discernment,"  replied  Bertie;  "but  she  has  no  eyes  or 
thoughts  but  for  one.  My  dear  boy,  if  you  wish  her  well,  you 
must  contrive  some  change  for  her." 

Criss  did  not  see  Nannie  again  until  he  came  suddenly  upon 
her  in  the  garden  on  that  same  evening.  If  she  had  intended 
to  avoid  him  it  was  too  late,  so  she  ma'de  up  her  rapid  mind  to 
lead  the  conversation  herself.  She  had  never  shown  much 
interest  in  Soudan,  or  his  accounts  of  his  doings  there.  Of  the 
magnitude  of  his  operations,  and  the  position  his  birth  and  for- 
tune gave  him,  she  was  ignorant.  Now,  she  eagerly  plied  him 
with  questions  about  the  country  which  had  so  long  been  her 
home.  What  had  become  of  the  Hazeltine  property  ?  did  her 
brother-in-law's  relations  live  upon  it,  or  had  they  sold  it  to 
strangers  ?  would  the  people  like  to  see  her  back  among  them  ? 
and  could  she  not  go  and  be  useful  in  nursing  the  people  with 
the  plague,  or  do  something  else  to  pass  the  time  ?  She  sup- 
posed there  must  be  some  very  nice  folks  there,  as  he  seemed  to 
like  being  there  so  much  better  than  in  England.  And  she 
wondered  he  did  not  stay  there  altogether,  instead  of  taking 
the  trouble  to  come  home.  And  she  wound  up  her  incoherent 
array  of  questionings  by  suddenly  taking  off  her  hat,  forgetting 
that  it  was  too  dark  to  see  it,  and  asking  him  if  he  did  not 
think  it  very  pretty. 

"And  what  have  you  and  Bertie  been  quarrelling  about?" 
asked  Criss. 

"  Does  he  say  we  have  quarrelled  ?  " 

"  He  has  said  nothing,  save  that  I  must  ask  yourself  what 
has  occurred  to  make  you  discontented." 


272  ^Y  A^^  m'- 

"  Did  he  say  I  am  discontented  ?  " 

"No,  you  have  yourself  admitted  as  much." 

"Oh." 

"Is  it  not  so?" 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  Don't  know  what  ?  " 

"  That  I  am  discontented,  and  have  admitted  it." 

"Well,  I  won't  tease  you  with  questions.  I  will  try  and  find 
out  for  myself,  by  watching  you." 

"  You  never  stay  long  enough  for  that." 

"  I  am  going  to  stay  longer  than  usual  this  time." 

"  Then  you  won't  be  able  to  find  me  out." 

"Why?" 

"Because  when  j^ou  are  here  I  am  never  discontented." 

"  Very  prettily  said,  Nannie.  I  shall  reward  you  by  show- 
ing you  some  of  the  pretty  things  in  my  house  to-morrow." 

"  Oh,  I  do  so  long  to  see  your  house,  and  everything  in  it.  I 
have  only  had  one  little  peep,  and  it  seemed  so  nice,  I  could  not 
think  liow  you  could  stay  so  much  away  from  it.  I  hope  it  will 
take  a  long  time  to  see  it  all." 

"Well,  you  must  come  over  early,  and  bring  Bertie  to  break- 
fast, and  spend  the  day  with  me." 

Nannie  went  to  bed  radiant  with  pleasure.  Criss  and  Bertie 
sat  up  some  time  to  talk  over  the  great  engineering  operations 
already  in  progress  at  Lake  Tchad.  There  had  been  consid- 
erable opposition  to  the  scheme  on  the  part  of  the  Conservatives 
of  Bornou,  who  said  that  if  Providence  had  wished  a  river  to 
run  from  the  lake  into  the  Sahara,  it  would  have  made  one ; 
and  also  from  the  Economists,  who  said  that  whatever  might 
be  the  result  to  posterity,  the  present  generation  would  never 
obtain  any  return  for  the  outlay.  Criss's  declaration  that  he 
would  bear  the  responsibilit}^,  and  pay  the  expense,  silenced 
both  parties.  He  had  also  purchased  the  consent  of  the  tribes 
inhabiting  the  neighboring  oases,  to  flood  their  country.  Al- 
ready was  an  army  of  laborers  at  work,  with  vast  engineering 
appliances,  but  the  scheme  had  not  been  bruited  in  Europe. 
Neither  had  his  ultimate  design  upon  the  Niger  been  divulged. 


BY  AND  BY.  273 

This  was  to  be  contingent  upon  the  experiment  with  Lake 
Tchad. 

Bertie  remarked  that  although  he  might  succeed  in  restrain- 
ing the  overflow  of  the  lake,  and  so  vastly  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  plateau,  he  suspected  that  the  desert  could  swallow 
up  any  amount  of  water  that  might  be  made  to  run  into  it. 

Criss  said  that  such  might  at  first  be  the  result,  but  Egypt 
was  an  example  to  the  contrary.  All  depended  upon  whether 
the  stream  consisted  of  clear  water,  or  was  charged  with  sedi- 
ment. The  country  about  Lake  Tchad  was  probably  the  largest 
alluvial  plain  in  the  world.  He  had  made  borings  which 
showed  the  amount  of  soil  to  be  practicably  inexhaustible. 
The  water  would  soon  spread  a  layer  of  this  on  the  sand,  and  a 
new  Egypt  and  new  Nile  would  arise  in  the  midst  of  the 
Sahara.  Besides,  if  necessary,  he  was  prepared  to  run  his  drain 
right  up  into  the  vast  swamps  which  occupy  the  heart  of 
Nigritia  itself.  The  only  doubt  was  as  to  the  precise  direction 
the  stream  would  take  :  whether  towards  the  Atlantic  on  the 
north-west  coast,  opposite  the  Canary  Isles ;  ©r  north-east, 
towards  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Libj'^an  desert. 

"  Why,  you  will  have  done  more  than  discover  a  world," 
exclaimed  Bertie,  as  the  vast  scheme  became  unfolded  before 
him.     "  You  will  have  created  one." 

"  My  scheme  involves  far  more  even  than  I  have  told  you," 
replied  Criss.  "  A  world  without  a  sea,  has  no  charms  for  me. 
The  ocean  which  once  filled  the  Sahara,  alone  can  fill  it  again. 
But  this  belongs  not  to  the  present." 


CHAPTER  III. 


A  SOUND  of  rippling  laughter  and  singing  in  the    garden, 

drew  Criss  early  to  his  window  next  morning.     The  impatient 

Nannie  could  not  wait  for  the  breakfast  hour,  or  for  Bertie  to 

accompany  her.     Criss's  housekeeper, — a  young  married  woman, 

18 


274  BY  AND  BY. 

wlio,  with  her  husband  and  children,  dwelt  in  the  house, — was 
snrprised  by  the  apparition  of  Xannie,  while  the  dew  still  lay 
thick  on  the  lawn,  saying  she  was  come  to  stay  all  day,  and 
demanding  of  her  the  baby,  that  she  might  nurse  it  until 
breakfast  time. 

Nannie  and  the  housekeeper  were  excellent  friends,  and  the 
young  mother  had  already  proved  Nannie's  qualifications  for 
such  an  office.  A  charming  picture  to  Criss  did  the  two  make 
in  his  garden :  Nannie,  with  all  the  skill  of  an  experienced 
nurse,  tossing  and  fondling  the  child,  and  the  child  responding 
delightedly  to  her  blandishments  by  throwing  about  its  little 
limbs  and  crowing.  Criss  thought  he  had  never  seen  Nannie 
look  so  lovel}',  or  so  womanly. 

'' Surely,"  thought  he  to  himself,  "that  must  be  what  she 
was  made  for.  Poor  child,  what  a  pity  it  is  there  is  no  one 
here  that  she  likes." 

Nannie  presided  at  Criss's  breakfast  table,  precisely  as  she 
had  learned  to  do  at  Bertie's ;  and  Criss  thought  the  period  of 
his  meal  had  never  been  so  bright  and  cheerful  before.  After 
breakfast  she  disappeared  for  an  hour,  leaving  the  men  to  dis- 
cuss the  day's  affairs,  and  was  presently  back  in  the  garden 
with  the  child.  Then  returning,  she  told  Criss  that  she  came 
to  remind  him  of  his  promise  to  show  her  the  house  and  its 
contents;  whereupon  he  took  her  into  a  room  which  hitherto 
had  been  seen  by  her  only  in  its  closed  and  muffled  state,  but 
now  was  manifest  in  all  its  beauty  of  ornament  and  decoration. 
This  was  the  drawing-room,  where  Criss  had  arranged  his 
paintings,  and  sculptures,  and  cabinets  of  curiosities.  Opening 
one  of  these,  he  took  out  a  necklace  and  locket,  which  had 
excited  her  admiration,  and  hung  it  round  her  fair  neck. 
Nannie  rushed  in  delight  to  the  glass  to  admire  herself  thus 
decorated,  and  then  returned  it  to  Criss.  But  he  told  her  that 
he  hoped  she  would  do  him  the  favor  to  keep  it  for  her  own. 
Nannie  said  it  was  lovely,  and  suited  her  exactly,  but  she  would 
rather  not  keep  it ;  alleging  as  a  reason,  in  answer  to  Criss's 
questionings,  that  she  understood  that  only  married  or  elderly 
women  wore  such  jewels. 


BY   AND  BY.  275 

"But  even  if  you  cannot  wear  it  at  present,"  he  said,  "you 
can  keep  it  until  you  have  attained  the  necessary  qiuilifica- 
tions." 

"  No ;  I  shall  never  marry,"  she  answered,  shortly. 

"  You  never  marry !  My  dear  Nannie,  what  a  fancy  !  Why, 
to  see  you  with  that  child,  anyone  would  think  you  were  made 
for  no  other  purpose." 

"Appearances  are  very  deceitful,"  said  Nannie,  demurely. 
"  I  could  only  marry  where  I  was  properly  loved  ;  and  no  one 
will  love  me  like  that.  I  am  not  a  woman  who  could  tolerate 
a  man  coming  to  me,  and  saying,  'Oh,  I  do  love  you  with  my 
whole  heart  so  dearly,  that  I  heg  you  will  let  me  take  you  for  a 
time  on  trial,  to  see  what  sort  of  a  woman  you  will  turn  out.' 
That's  what  they  do  in  Soudan.  Mattie,  my  sister,  was  proper- 
ly loved  and  properly  married,  for  Frank  took  her  for  alto- 
gether at  once.  I  am  like  her  in  that.  I  wouldn't  he  married 
in  any  other  way.     No  rehearsals  for  me." 

"  You  forget,  Nannie,  that  the  women  as  well  as  the  men,  have 
the  benefit  of  the  trial.  Suppose  you  found  yourself  irrevoca- 
bly tied  to  a  man  who  wi^  unworthy  of  you,  or  who  did  not 
'  properly '  love  you.  One  cannot  always  judge  beforehand 
how  people  will  agree  in  a  new  relationship." 

"  A  woman  who  is  a  woman  can  always  tell  a  man  who  is  a 
man,  when  she  sees  him ;  and  if  she  is  a  woman  she  can  make 
him  love  her  as  he  ought." 

"  Well,  Nannie,  at  any  rate  you  need  have  no  misgivings  on 
the  score  of  not  being  properly  loved,  when  your  time  comes. 
No  man  can  be  indifferent  to  your  sweet  face  and  winning 
ways." 

"  I  don't  believe  you  mean  a  word  of  it,"  exclaimed  Nannie, 
"  for  yon  are  quite  indifferent  to  them  yourself."  And  she 
composed  her  pretty  lips  into  a  pout,  while  her  eyes  sparkled, 
and  her  whole  frame  vibrated  with  quick  vitality. 

"  So  far  from  being  indifferent  to  your  charms,  Nannie 
dear,"  replied  Criss,  "  I  have  found  myself  wondering  some- 
times whether,  if  you  had  not  been  possessed  of  them,  I  should 
have  acted  by  you  as  I  have  done^  from  a  sense  of  duty  only." 


27G  BT  AND  BY. 

"  Oh,  I  hope  not ! "  cried  Nannie  ;  "  I  could  not  hear  to  have 
you  do  things  for  me  from  a  sense  of  duty,  and  not  hecause  you 
admire  and — and — care  for  me." 

Nannie's  profound  sense  of  superiority^  to  all  codes  whatever 
of  morals,  and  her  habit  of  unconsciously  referring  all  conduct 
to  the  criterion  of  affection,  had  often  struck  Criss  as  a  remark- 
able element  in  her  character.  It  coincided  with  his  own  in- 
tuitions in  respect  to  the  infinite;  for  he  had  found  himself  as 
much  at  a  loss  to  discern  the  connection  between  the  spiritual 
and  moral,  as  between  the  physical  and  moral  worlds.  And 
here  was  the  animal  world,  as  represented  by  one  of  its  highest 
types — a  lovely,  impulsive  girl — repudiating  it  also. 

"Ah  !"  he  said,  "what  a  world  this  Avould  be  if  the  prompt- 
ings of  love  were  always  in  accordance  with  those  of  duty.  We 
might  drop  the  word  duti/  out  of  our  dictionaries  altogether 
then,  and  /  like  would  rightly  take  the  place  of  /  ought.  But 
we  must  have  very  well-regulated  natures  for  that  to  be  so,  you 
know." 

"  I  am  sure,"  returned  Nannie,  "  that  if  it  was  anybody's 
'  duty '  to  like  me  properly,  it  would  be  his  duty  to  do  what- 
ever I  liked,  too  !  And  I  know  he  would  be  repaid  by  being 
verj'  happy  in  return." 

"I  don't  doubt  it  in  the  least,"  replied  Criss ;  "  and  I  think 
he  will  be  a  very  fortunate  fellow  Avho  shall  win  the  whole  of 
your  affectionate  little  heart  for  himself." 

Nannie  made  a  gesture  of  impatience,  and  turning  to  some 
article  in  the  room,  began  asking  him  questions  about  it.  The 
morning  passed  rapidly,  and  in  the  afternoon  several  of  Criss's 
friends  came,  much  to  Nannie's  discomposure,  for  it  put  an  end 
to  her  exclusive  possession  of  him.  While  resenting  the  de- 
mands made  by  these  upon  his  attention,  she  was  struck  by  the 
greatness  of  the  deference  they  showed  him.  Having  no  con- 
ception of  the  position  held  by  him  in  the  regards  of  men,  and 
having,  moreover,  seen  him  only  among  his  oldest  and  most 
familiar  friends,  she  found  herself  now  compelled  to  make  some 
modification  in  her  view  of  him.  And  as  nothing  gave  Nannie 
greater  annoyance  than  having  to  modify  a  view  once  taken, 


BY  AND  BY.  27.7 

this,  and  his  engrossment  by  strangers,  combined'  to  make  the 
afternoon,  pass  as  disagreeably  for  her  as  the  morning  had 
passed  pleasantly. 

In  the  evening  they  were  alone  again,  and  Nannie's  good 
temper  returned ;  though  she  was  still  disconcerted  at  finding 
herself  obliged  to  regard  Criss  as  a  personage  of  more  impor- 
tance than  she  had  ever  before  deemed  him.  Nannie  was  very 
proud,  and  held  herself  to  be  as  good  as  anyone.  It  was  intol- 
erable that  any  should  deem  themselves  too  good  for  her.  And 
she  shrank  from  the  thought  of  Criss  looking  upon  her  as  the 
occupant  of  a  mere  corner  in  his  occasional  regards,  as  might 
easily  be  the  case  if  he  were  a  great  personage,  engaged  in  im- 
portant pursuits. 

However,  all  reflections  of  this  kind  vanished  in  presence 
of  the  wonders  revealed  to  her  for  the  first  time  in  the  splendid 
microscope  which  Criss  exhibited  to  her.  For  some  time  her 
faculty  of  surprise  and  admiration  was  so  excited  as  to  over- 
power all  other  faculties ;  but  at  length  her  manner  changed, 
her  delight  and  vivacity  disappeared,  and  she  pushed  the  in- 
strument away,  saying  she  could  not  bear  it — it  made  her 
feel  so  insignificant.  It  was  no  good  being  bigger,  or 
cleverer,  or  prettier,  than  those  tiny,  ugly  specimens,  if  when 
you  magnified  them  you  found  them  just  as  beautiful  and  per- 
fect as  yourself.  And  it  was  but  a  qualified  submission  that 
she  made  when  Criss  told  her  that  he,  on  the  contrary,  derived 
more  spiritual  comfort  from  the  microscope  than  almost  from 
anything  else  ;  inasmuch  as  by  revealing  the  same  perfect  or- 
ganization pervading  the  infinitely  small  that  we  find  in  the 
large,  it  demonstrates  that  nothing  is  too  minute  or  unimpor- 
tant to  be  the  subject  of  the  Divine  law  and  providence. 

Nannie  expres.sed  her  approval  of  this  thought,  but  said  that, 
after  looking  through  the  microscope,  it  seemed  to  her  as  if 
there  were  no  such  differences  as  small  and  great,  ugly  and 
pretty. 

Criss  spent  the  next  day  in  London,  returning  to  Bertie's  in 
the  evening.     Nannie  passed  most  of  the  time  he  was  there  in 


273  BY  AND  BY. 

the  garden,  feaying  she  felt  the  house  too  close  for  her,  and 
preferred  the  air.  Again  they  talked  ahout  her,  and  Bertie 
said  that  Nannie  had  confessed  that  she  had  never  been  so 
happy  and  so  miserable  as  yesterday.  The  strength  of  her 
feelings,  he  said,  fairly  frightened  him,  and  he  did  not  know 
to  what  they  might  bring  her,  unless  she  were  provided  with 
some  object  on  which  to  bestow  them. 

"  But  why  should  she  have  been  so  happy,  and  why  so  miser- 
able at  my  house  ?  " 

"  Well,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out,  she  was  happy  because  she 
was  with  the  only  friend  she  has  in  the  world ;  and  miserable 
because  that  friend  did  not  seem  to  be  equally  engrossed  by 
her." 

"But,"  said  Criss,  "that  is  very  much  like  what  is  called 
'being  in  love.'  " 

"  Very  much,  indeed,"  said  Bertie,  drily. 

"  But  you  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Nannie  is  in  that  condi- 
tion as  regards*  me  ?  " 

"  I  believe  that  if  ever  young  woman  was  over  head  and  ears 
in  love  with  young  man,  she  is  that  at  this  moment  with  you." 

"  Dear  me,"  said  Criss,  "  I  never  thought  of  such  a  thing." 

"You  don't  seem  over  pleased  at  what  an^'^  other  man  of 
your  age  would  give  his  ears  for,"  said  Bertie,  unconsciously 
repeating  and  recalling  to  Criss's  memory  almost  the  very 
words  Nannie  had  used  of  herself  in  the  Ariel. 

"I  suppose  she  is  very  beautiful,"  remarked  Criss,  as  if  he 
had  never  made  up  his  mind  on  the  subject. 

"Not  a  man  beholds  her  but  declares  that  he  never  saw  her 
equal,  and  that  not  for  beauty  of  feature'  and  form  merely,  but 
for  the  peculiar  feminineness  of  her  look  and  ways.  One  can- 
not fancy  her  other  than  always  young  and  blithesome." 

"And  as  good  as  her  looks  ?"  said  Criss,  interrogatively. 

"  I  believe,"  answered  Bertie,  "  that  her  nature  is  a  force 
which  she  will  find  hard  to  control.  Way  it  will  have,  but  its 
direction  will  depend  upon  the  circumstances  in  which  she  will 
be  placed,  and  the  people  with  whom  she  will  have  to  deal. 
Indeed,  the  responsibility  of  supervising  her  is  already  become 


BT  AND  BY.  279 

more  than  I  like  to  contemplate.  Yet  I  cannot  tliink  of  anj 
change  that  would  be  for  the  better,  excepting  one.  Only  a 
husband,  can  really  influence  her  development  and  lot.  Her 
whole  nature  throughout  is  genuine,  rich,  and  untilled  as  a 
virgin  soil ;  and  like  it,  ready  to  bear  a  crop  of  good  or  evil, 
according  to  the  will  of  the  husbandman." 

Here  Bertie  chuckled  at  his  own  unintended  double. 

"  The  strength  of  her  character,"  he  went  on,  "  consists  in 
her  affections.  She  will  abandon  herself  utterly  to  their 
dominion.  Whatever  she  may  do,  whether  in  love  or  hate,  will 
be  done  heartily.  The  man  who  marries  her  will  be  tied  to  no 
inert  mass.  Her  intense  vitality  will  not  let  her  be  ignored,  or 
got  accustomed  to  as  a  mere  habit.  But  she  will  be  an  active 
element  in  his  existence,  whether  for  his  happiness  or  his 
misery.  There  is  no  sameness  about  her.  Reading  my  Shakes- 
peare the  other  evening,  when  I  came  to  his  description  of 
Cleopatra,  as  infinite  in  variety,  and  lovely  in  all,  I  was  irre- 
sistibly reminded  of  the  dear  child.  And  I  truly  believe  she 
needs  only  a  return  as  genuine  as  that  which  she  renders,  to 
insure  the  happier  fate." 

"Well,  Nannie,  how  is  the  head  now?"  said  Criss,  joining 
her  in  the  garden.  "I  hope  you  like  my  house  well  enough 
to  give  me  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  in  it  again  soon." 

"  I  like  the  house  and  everything  about  it  so  well,  that  if  it 
belonged  to  me,  I  should  not  always  be  leaving  it,  as  you  do, 
for  other  places.  But  was  it  really  a  pleasure  to  you  to  see  me 
in  it?  I  hope  it  was,  because  I  like  nothing  so  much  as  giving 
you  pleasure." 

"  My  dear  Nannie,  while  flitting  about  on  the  lawn  and 
among  the  flowers,  you  looked  like  a  fair  young  angel.  And 
when  you  were  nursing  and  singing  to  the  child,  you  appeared 
such  a  bright  and  joyous  creature,  that  it  seemed  as  if  nothing 
but  brightness  and  happiness  could  ever  come  where  you  were. 
I  really  could  not  heljj  thinking  that  if  only  that  young  fellow 
who  has  been  so  fortunate  as  to  touch  your  fancy,  had  seen 
you  yesterday,  he  could  not  long  have  remained  obdurate.' 


280  ST  AND  BY. 

"  What  ?  whom  do  you  mean ! "  cried  Nannie. 

"Am  I  not  right  in  understanding  your  expression  of  a  wish 
to  return  to  Soudan,  as  an  admission  tliat  there  is  some  one 
there  to  whom  you  are  attached?  Well,  now,  coupling  this 
with  your  liking  for  my  house,  I  have  been  thinking  that  if  the 
gentleman  in  question  be  really  worthy  of  you,  instead  of  your 
going  back  to  Africa,  I  will  send  for  him  to  England,  and  you 
shall  have  my  house,  or  one  just  like  it,  for  your  own." 

"But — but — "  gasped  Nannie,  "I  did  not  mean  that  I  liked 
your  house  for  itself.  I  liked  it  for  your  being  in  it.  There  is 
no  one  in  Africa  I  care  for.  Oh  !  Criss,  Criss,  why  did  you  save 
a  poor  girl's  life  only  to  tease  her  ?  I  did  hope  you  cared  for 
me  a  little  bit.  But  now  you  offer  to  giA^e  me  up,  and  get  rid 
of  me  altogetlier!  I  wish  I  had  jumped  overboard  from  the 
Ariel,  and  made  an  end  at  once.  I  should  have  been  spared  all 
this  after." 

"My  dear  Nannie,  I  thought  I  was  showing  that  I  cared, 
not  a  little,  but  a  big  bit,  for- you  when  I  proposed  to  do  all  I 
could  to  make  you  happy." 

"  Care  for  me  when  you  would  give  me  to  another !  No,  no, 
that  is  not  caring.  Caring  means  wanting  all  for  oneself.  It 
means  love,  and  jealousy  too,  for  no  love  is  without  that." 

"If  ever  a  woman  were  to  care  for  me,  Nannie,  the  last 
thing  I  should  expect  from  her  would  be  jealousy.  I  should 
not  give  her  cause.  Surely  you  are  not  of  a  jealous  disposition  ? 
Por  jealousy  and  happiness  cannot  possibly  exist  together;  and 
I  am  sure  you  would  prefer  to  give  happiness." 

"Oh,  yes!"  she  exclaimed;  "but  I  can  be  A^ery  naughty, 
sometimes;  I  know  I  can,  and  shall.  But  I  know  I  can  be 
ver}'  good  and  nice,  too,  at  others,  to  make  up.  Why,  do  you 
know,  I  think  it  is  partly  because  I  am  sure  to  be  so  naughty 
as  to  make  him  want  sometimes  to  get  rid  of  me,  that  I  shall 
insist  on  my  husband  marrying  me  for  altogether  at  once, 
Avhen  I  do  marry." 

"  I  dislike  the  idea  of  limited  liability  marriages  as  much 
as  you  do,"  returned  Criss ;  "  but  even  other  kinds  are  not 
absolutely  irrevocable,  you  know.     Good  behavior   is   always 


BY  AND  Br.  281 

necessary,  just  as  in  other  partnerships.  But  Nannie,  it  is  not 
as  a  safeguard  against  a  true  and  genuine  nature  that  such 
release  is  permitted,  but  against  falsehood  and  insincerity. 
And  it  is  not  in  you  to  exhibit  those." 

"  I  like  you  to  praise  me,"  said  Nannie,  simply ;  "  it  helps 
me  to  be  good." 

"  Tell  me  truly  and  seriously,  Nannie,  Do  you  think  ycni 
would  be  perfectly  contented  and  hajjpy  if  you  were  to  come 
and  live  altogether  in  my  house,  and  take  care  of  it  as  you  do 
of  Bertie's,  and  let  me  take  care  of  you  as  my  own  dear  little 
wife  ?  " 

Nannie  uttered  a  sharp  cry,  and  gasped  out, — 

"  Do  you  mean  it  ?  Is  it  for  real  love  of  me,  or  only  for 
pity?" 

And  without  waiting  for  his  answer,  or  rather,  perhaps, 
reading  it  in  his  eyes,  she  fell  in  a  swoon  upon  the  floor  of  the 
arbor,  in  which  they  were  sitting. 


"  I  fear,  Bertie,  you  must  consent  to  lose  the  services  of  your 
fair  housekeeper.  Nannie  declares  that  she  likes  my  house 
better  than  yours,  and  has  promised  to  come  and  keep  it  for 
me.  I  grant  you  that  I  have  driven  a  hard  bargain  with  her, 
for  I  have  made  her  promise  also  to  be  my  wife." 

And  the  young  pair  stood  before  Bertie  as  before  a  father, 
to  receive  his  congratulations  and  blessing,  which  were  given  in 
no  niggardly  fashion. 

When  Nannie,  almost  borne  down  with  the  weight  of  her 
happiness,  had  retired,  he  said  to  Criss, — 

"  Does  she  know  all  ?  " 

"She  knows  nothing,"  he  answered j  "but  takes  me  for 
myself." 


282  BT  AND  BY. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

AvENiL  was  overjoyed.  Witli  work  and  a  wife,  he  held 
Criss's  sanity  assured.  The  female  part  of  his  family  was  less 
pleased.  Though  kind  to  them  as  any  brotlier,  Criss  had  never 
manifested  such  preference  for  any  of  the  girls  as  could  justify 
expectation  of  a  closer  connection.  Nevertheless,  but  for  the 
intrusion  of  Nannie,  there  was  no  knowing  what  might  not  have 
happened. 

However,  no  Avenil  could  entertain  a  petty  feeling.  They 
were  of  the  sort  of  people  who,  if  they  err,  err  through  strength, 
and  not  through  weakness.  It  was  probably  the  imj^ression 
they  produced,  of  having  natures  so  strong  and  complete  in 
themselves,  that  led  to  the  comparative  indifference  with  which 
they  were  regarded  by  the  opposite  sex.  Ordinarily,  women 
like  to  be  wanted.  But  an  Avenil  man  never  gave  a  woman 
the  impression  that*  he  had  any  need  of  her.  And  an  Avenil 
woman  was  endowed  with  too  robust^  a  faculty  of  self-help,  to 
suggest  to  men  the  idea  of  tenderness.  They  might  and  did 
contract  alliances,  which  were  productive  of  a  considerable 
amount  of  solid,  sensible  happiness;  but  the  passion  of  love 
came  not  near  them.  Between  such  love  as  they  felt  or  in- 
spired, and  passion,  was  precisely  the  same  interval,  in  kind 
and  degree,  as  between  talent  and  genius. 

The  two  points  the  feminine  part  of  the  family  mainly  dis- 
cussed now,  were, — 

Was  Criss  really  and  properly  in  love,  and  after  what  fashion  ? 
and,  was  Nannie  "  good  enough  "  for  him  ? 

Certainly,  Nannie  was  as  great  a  contrast  to  them  as  could 
possibly  be.  They,  so  complete  in  themselves  as  to  make  the 
suggestion  seem  absurd  that  there  was  room  about  them  for 
any  complementary  addition.  She,  so  palpably  incomplete,  so 
unable  to  stand  alone,  so  essentially  complementary  in  her 
whole  structure  of  character  and  form,  and  therefore  in  her 
iinlikeness  to  men  so  suggestive  of  likeness  and  fitness — in  a 


BT   AND  BY.  283 

word,  so  distinctively  feminine — that  men  could  not  help  being 
drawn  towards  her  by  the  sheer  necessity  of  their  nature.  Of 
course,  Criss  had  made  no  such  critical  analysis  either  of 
Kannie,  or  of  the  feeling  which  impelled  them  towards  each 
other.  But  he  came  to  understand  it  all  from  experience  ;  and 
the  insight  thus  given  him  into  the  true  nature  of  the  relations 
of  the  sexes,  was  to  him  a  further  revelation  than  any  he  had 
previously  attained  concei'ning  the  fundamental  nature  and 
significance  of  the  Universe.  He  learnt,  too,  what  he  had  before 
but  dimly  apprehended,  the  truth  of  the  old  saying,  that 
"  Woman  is  not  lesser  man,  but  diverse,"  so  that  the  more  a 
woman  is  a  woman,  the  less  is  she  a  man. 

On  one  point  the  whole  of  the  Avenils  took  the  same  view, 
and  held  it  strongly.  They  thought  that  by  marrying  Nannie, 
in  the  first  instance  at  least,  by  a  contract  of  the  first  class, 
Criss  was  running  a  great  and  superfluous  risk.  To  put  it  out 
of  his  power  to  get  rid  of  her  at  his  own  will,  they  urged,  was 
to  hazard  too  much  on  an  unknown  chance.  Even  with  people 
trained  to  civilization  from  infancy,  and-whose  every  thought 
and  action  were  familiarly  known,  marriage  was  a  lottery, 
owing  to  the  impossibility  of  forecasting  the  influence  it  would 
have  on  the  character  of  an  individual.  How  much  more  so, 
then,  in  the  case  of  one  of  whom  nothing  was  known  save  that 
she  was  utterly  undisciplined  and  self-willed. 

Criss,  however,  would  listen  to  no  suggestion  of  the  kind. 
He  would  give  himself  wholly,  or  not  at  all.  He  could  not  con- 
ceive of  the  fair  creature  he  had  so  often  saved,  and  whose 
whole  heart  was  so  evidently  his,  as  making  herself  liable  to 
repudiation  for  bad  behavior.  Neither  did  he  think  of  her  as 
one  whose  spirit  could  be  subdued'  by  any  amount  of  liability. 
But,  be  she  what  she  might,  he  had  all  faith  in  the  power  of 
the  true  and  honest  affection  he  should  give  her,  to  mould  her 
into  complete  harmony  with  himself. 

Intense  as  was  the  satisfaction  which  Criss  derived  from 
Nannie's  unrestrained  abandonment  to  the  impulses  of  her 
emotional  nature,  in  the  direction  of  affection,  the  unexpected 


284  BY  AND  BY. 

difficulty  lie  found  soon  after  tlieir  marriage  in  making  her 
comprehend  that  a  man's  nature  possesses  sides  which  do  not 
come  within  the  category  of  the  emotions,  at  least,  of  that  of 
love,  involved  him  at  times  in  no  slight  embarrassment.  She 
could  not,  or  would  not  understand  that  hS  could  have  duties 
which  must  occasionally  take  him  from  her  side,  or  friendships 
which  bore  no  rivalry  to  his  love  for  her. 

With  her  nature,  so  far  as  it  went,  Criss  felt  that  he  coin- 
cided entirely.  But  his  nature  extended  far  beyond  hers  in 
every  direction.  And  at  this  she  rebelled,  for  she  could  not 
see  why  it  should  be  so,  No  small  nature  ever  can  see  how 
narrow  it  is,  intense  though  it  may  be  within  its  own  limits. 
Iler  dissatisfaction  found  vent  in  the  cry — 

"All  of  me  wants  you,  and  only  a  part  of  you  M^ants  me !  " 

Criss  was  sanguine,  however,  that  under  his  loving  tuition 
she  would  groiu. 

As  time  went  on,  her  expressions  of  regret  at  his  occasional 
absences  took  the  form  of  strong  opposition  to  all  absence  what- 
ever. It  was  not  enough  for  her  that  she  always  accompanied 
him  when  practicable.  Neither  was  she  content  with  burden- 
ing him  with  reproaches  because  he  did  not  decline  all  business 
or  other  engagements  which  took  him  from  her.  She  was  jeal- 
ous even  of  the  engagements  themselves. 

"  Why,  Nannie  darling,"  he  said  one  day  to  her,  in  answer 
to  her  remonstrances,  "  what  would  become  of  you  and  your 
husband,  supposing  you  had  married  a  man  who  had  to  earn 
his  living  by  working  away  from  home  ?" 

She  evaded  an  answer  by  saying  that  Criss  had  no  need  to 
leave  home  to  earn  a  living. 

"But  it  is  equally  a  duty,"  he  pleaded,  "for  a  man  to  fulfil 
his  obligations  in  the  world,  whether  he  be  rich  or  poor.  The 
world  would  never  get  on  otherwise." 

"  But  I  don't  care  for  the  world,"  she  returned.  "  I  only 
care  for  you.  If  you  loved  rae  properly,  you  would  not  care 
for  anything  beside  me." 

"  Do  you  really  mean  that  I  do  not  love  you  properly  ?  " 

"  You  don't  love  me  as  I  love  you." 


BY  AND  BY.  285 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  love  me  when  you  distress 
me,  and  try  to  humiliate  me  by  persuading  me  to  forfeit  my 
self-respect  ?  " 

"  How  self-respect  ?  " 

"Why,  by  detaining  me  from  duties  I  am  in  honor  pledged 
to  fulfil." 

"  Is  it  your  duty  to  go  where  there  are  other  women  ?  " 

"  Sometimes." 

"  Well,  that  is  what  I  cannot  bear,  that  you  should  look  at, 
or  speak  to,  any  other  woman  than  myself." 

"Do  you  know,  Nannie,  that  the  feeling  you  are  describing 
is  called  by  one  of  the  ugliest  names  in  language  ?  We  men- 
tioned it  once  when  talking  together,  before  we  were  married, 
or  engaged.     Do  you  remember?  " 

"If  you  mean  jealous]/,  I  am  jealous  of  you,  and  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  own  it." 

"You  ought  to  have  a  better  opinion  of  the  power  of  your 
charms.  But  do  you  really  think  you  have  reason  to  be  jeal- 
ous ?  " 

"  Eeason  !  I  hate  the  word.  Never  talk  to  the  woman  you 
love,  of  reason  ! " 

"  Nannie,  I  must  have  an  answer.  Do  you  consider  that  I 
give  you  cause  to  be  jealous  of  me  ?  " 

She  was  on  the  point  of  uttering  an  animated  yes,  but  the  un- 
wonted sternness  of  his  manner  prompted  her  to  change  her 
yes  to  "  No,"  and  to  accompany  the  negative  with  a  pout,  by 
which  she  intended  to  indicate  that  all  she  had_said  was  in 
pure  wilfulness,  and  that  she  wanted  him  to  kiss  her  and  be 
friends  again.  Her  similar  exhibitions  on  previous  occasions 
had  always  terminated  thus  ;  but  this  time  Criss  thought  it 
would  minister  to  the  happiness  of  both  of  them  were  he  to 
postpone  his  coming  round  for  a  little  while.  So  he  said  very 
gravely,— 

"  Nannie,  love  is  impossible  where  there  is  no  respect.  To 
be  jealous  of  me  is  to  insult  and  outrage  me.  Never  pretend 
to  be  so  again,  unless  you  can  show  me  grounds  for  the  accusa- 
tion." 


286  BY  AND  BY. 

The  pout  faded  from  Nannie's  lips,  as  with  a  frightened  aii 
she  said, — 

"  You  should  not  take  so  seriously  what  I  said.  I  cannot 
conceal  my  feelings ;  and  only  wanted  to  show  you  how  much  I 
love  you.  I  won't  be  naughty  any  more,  I  promise.  I  do  not 
mean  anything  by  what  I  said." 

And  then  with  all  the  sweet  and  womanly  arts  which  in- 
stinct had  taught  her  to  perfection,  she  insisted  on  his  petting 
and  making  much  of  her,  and  recapitulating  all  her  charms — 
a  theme  of  which  she  never  tired — and  she  meanwhile  was  so 
soft  and  clinging,  and  Avithal  so  childlike  and  simple  in  her 
affectionateness,  that  he  perforce  admitted  that,  however 
naughty  she  might  sometimes  be,  surely  no  one  ever  better  re- 
paid petting  than  his  Nannie — -for  a  short  time — a  qualifica- 
tion wliich  brought  out  the  pout  that  required  so  much  kissing 
to  reduce  it. 

In  the  hope  of  wearing  out  her  craving  for  his  exclusive 
companionship,  Criss  endeavored  to  accustom  her  to  social  in- 
tercourse with  his  friends  at  the  Triangle  and  elsewhere.  In 
this  way  he  hoped  to  turn  to  good  account  her  love  of  admira- 
tion, a  love  of  which  she  made  no  affectation  of  concealment  from 
him;  for  she  often  entertained  him  with  her  narratives  of  the 
effect  she  produced  upon  the  men  by  her  beauty,  and  upon  the 
women  by  her  skill  in  dress.  Criss  had  a  special  reason  for  de- 
siring to  wean  her  in  some  degree  from  his  own  society.  It 
was  becoming  necessary  for  him  to  revisit  Soudan,  and  he 
dreaded  the  effect  which  the  separation  might  produce  upon 
her,  unless  she  had  the  solace  of  some  congenial  companion- 
ship in  his  absence.  Tliere  were  very  man}^  reasons  why  he 
should  not  take  her  with  him.  In  the  occasional  short  aerial 
excursions  he  had  of  late  taken  her,  she  had  shown  an  excita- 
bility which,  to  use  the  words  of  their  physician,  "  it  was  not 
desirable  to  encourage."  And  the  climate  of  the  plains  in 
which  Criss's  business  lay,  was  too  trying  for  Europeans,  Be- 
sides, while  absent  he  would  be  always  on  the  move. 

He  hoped  to  attach  her  suffidiiently  to  some  of  his  friends 
to  make  her  willing  to  receive  them  as  visitors,  and  exercise 


BY  AND  BY.  287 

liosi^itality  towards  them  in  her  home.  But  when  he  ran  over 
the  list,  there  was  not  a  person  in  it  against  whom  she  did  not 
raise  an  objection.  And  he  soon  learnt  that  to  »ay  a  word  in 
favor  of  any  one  else  on  any  score  whatever,  was  to  find  fault 
with  her.  The  discovery  that  she  was  likely  to  become  a 
mother  filled  him  with  joy,  as  much  for  the  hope  it  gave  him 
tliat  her  condition  of  mind  was  the  result  of  her  condition  of 
body,  and  would  pass  away  with  it,  or  that,  at  any  rate,  her 
promotion  to  the  dignity  of  parent  would  bring  with  it  the 
needed  maturity  of  character ;  as  for  the  pleasure  with  which 
he  could  contemplate  the  blending  of  his  own  and  Nannie's 
lineaments  in  their  offspring. 

There  was  ample  time  for  him  to  make  his  visit  to  Soudan 
before  Nannie  was  likely  to  be  taken  ill,  and  he  cast  about  for 
some  method  of  gaining  her  assent  which  should  not  arouse 
her  excitability  and  opposition.  "  Could  she  only  once  see  her- 
self as  she  makes  herself  appear  to  me,"  he  thought,  "she 
surely  would  be  cured." 

A  remark  of  her  own  respecting  some  theatrical  performance 
she  had  lately  witnessed,  suggested  the  Stage  as  a  possible 
agent  in  her  education.  Without  letting  her  know  he  had  a 
hand  in  it,  he  obtained  for  one  of  the  periodical  performances 
in  the  theatre  of  the  Triangle,  the  selection  of  a  very  clever 
comedy,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  exhibit  the  sorrows  of  a 
man  under  the  infliction  of  a  jealous  wife.  It  was  one  of  the 
well-known  series  of  educational  dramas  by  which,  through  the 
consummate  art  of  their  construction,  the  highest  moral  teach- 
ing is  conveyed  without  the  audience  being  made  aware  that 
anything  beyond  mere  amusement  is  designed. 

To  this  Criss  took  Nannie,  and  so  life-like  and  apt  were  some 
of  the  scenes,  that  he  feared  she  would  accuse  him  of  a  purpose 
in  taking  her,  and  perhaps  in  having  a  hand  in  the  making  of 
the  play  itself.  But  Nannie  enjoyed  it  immensely,  laughing 
heartily  at  all  the  points.  And  the  only  reflections  she  ex- 
pressed afterwards  were,  as  regarded  the  unhappy  husband, 
that  he  was  a  fool  to  ti-ouble  himself  about  a  woman  who  could 
behave  in   such  a  manner;  and  as  regarded  the  wife,  that  she 


288  BY  AND  BY. 

did  not  deserve  to  have  a  husband  at  all,  much  less  a  good  one 
who  gave  her  no  cause  for  jealousy.  Of  self-consciousness 
Kanuie,  to  Griss's  amazement  and  disappointment,  exhibited 
not  a  particle :  so  utterly  was  she  unaware  that  she  had  been 
gazing  upon  herself,  as  it  were,  in  a  mirror.  And  so  com- 
pletely was  the  lesson  lost  upon  her,  that  she  even  remarked, — 

"  Oh,  how  I  should  hate  myself  if  I  thought  I  could  be  such 
a  woman  as  that ! " 

Clearly  self-knowledge  and  self-examination  were  neither 
forte  nor  foible  of  Nannie's ;  and  it  became  a  serious  problem 
with  Criss  how  to  influence  a  nature  so  inaccessible  to  reproof. 
Perhaps  by  giving  her  credit  for  a  virtue  which  she  did  not 
possess,  he  would  be  ministering  to  her  acquisition  of  it.  What 
if  he  sought  to  enlist  her  sympathies  for  some  friend  in  diffi- 
culty or  trouble  ? 

An  opportunity  presented  itself.  He  told  Nannie  that  Bes- 
sie Avenil,  after  being  united  for  some  time  to  a  man  morally 
her  superior,  but  physically  and  mentally  her  inferior,  had 
resolved  to  dismiss  him,  on  the  ground  that  he  did  not  come  up 
to  her  idea  of  what  a  husband  should  be.  And  he  appealed  to 
Nannie  as  a  woman  of  feeling,  whether  it  would  not  be  a 
friendly  act  to  try  and  save  Bessie  from  the  remorse  she  would 
be  sure  to  feel  for  having  deserted  one  whom  she  had  brought 
to  love  her,  simply  because,  though  thoroughly  good,  he  was  a 
somewhat  feeble  specimen  of  a  man. 

"  What  does  she  say  for  herself  ?  "  said  Nannie. 

"  She  says  that  when  she  married  she  was  young  and  igno- 
rant ;  but  that  now  that  she  knows  what  a  husband  means,  she 
intends  to  have  a  good  one." 

"  There's  sense  in  that,"  said  Nannie. 

"  But  not  tlie  tenderness  or  sympathy  you  would  show  for  a 
husband  who  needed  your  consideration  ?" 

"  What  does  she  say  to  that  ?  " 

"  That  sjnnpathy  is  all  very  well,  but  that  she  prefers  justice 
— justice  to  herself — and  believes  justice  to  oneself  is  the  first 
of  moral  duties." 

"And  what  do  you  want  me  to  do  ?" 


BY  AND  BY.  280 

"It  occurred  to  me  that,  before  the  final  rupture  takes  place, 
you  might  get  her  here,  and  show  her,  by  your  own  example, 
what  an  affectionate  wife  should  be  to  a  man." 

"To  a  man  who  doesn't  love  her  ?" 

"  He  does  love  her,  utterly ;  only  she  is  so  full  of  life  and 
health,  that  he  cannot  live  at  the  same  pace.  You  could  teach 
her  to  hold  herself  in." 

Nannie  shook  her  head. 

"  He  loves  her  so  well,"  pursued  Criss,  "  that  he  is  ready, 
out  of  regard  for  her  happiness,  to  sacrifice  his  own  and  relin- 
quish her.  You  would  have  been  touched  by  the  tone  of  dis- 
tress in  which  he  told  me  how  deeply  he  felt  his  own  unworthi- 
ness,  and  inability  properly  to  fulfil  the  position  he  held 
towards  her.  But  he  counted  his  happiness  as  nothing  in  com- 
parison to  hers." 

"  Have  they  any  children  ?  "  asked  Nannie. 

"  Only  one ;  a  girl." 

"  And  what  becomes  of  it  if  they  separate  ?  " 

"  If  they  separate  for  incompatibility  merely,  it  will  spend 
half  its  time  with  each  parent  alternately.  Where  there  is  a 
serious  defect  of  character  or  conduct  on  one  side,  the  law 
assigns  the  sole  charge  of  the  child  to  the  other." 

"  It  is  just  as  I  said,"  she  exclaimed,  after  a  brief  pause. 
"  He  does  not  love  her,  or  he  would  not  give  her  up  for  any- 
thing. He  isn't  a  man,  and  she  isn't  a  woman;  at  least,  not 
what  I  call  a  woman.  If  she  was  a  woman,  she  would  make 
him  love  her  just  as  she  wished,  in  spite  of  everything.  I 
would,  if  it  was  me.  I  dare  say  she  is  not  worth  troubling 
about.  What  makes  you  take  such  an  interest  in  her  ?  Isn't 
one  woman  enough  for  you  to  be  concerned  with?" 

"Too  much,  Nannie,  if  she  requires  me  to  abandon  or  neglect 
the  friends  of  a  life." 

"  If  you  were  properly  in  love  you  would  have  no  room  for 
friends." 

"Were  I  to  be  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  tliose  who  have 
always  befriended  me,  I  should  be  a  base  wretch,  and  unworthy 
of  love.  You  don't  mean  what  your  words  imply,  Nannie 
19 


290  BY  AND  BY. 

darling.  I  should  be  cruelly  distressed  if  I  thought  you  did. 
I  should  be  forced  to  think  you  did  not  love  me,  or  else  that 
you  were  not  worth  loving,  if  I  thought  you  did  not  care  for 
my  character,  my  honor,  or  my  happiness." 

"What  do  you  want,  then,  with  any  woman  besides  me?" 

"Have  I  not  explained  ?  Do  you  not  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  words  ?  " 

"  I  understand  what  you  mean  by  friends,  and  I  won't  have 
it.     1  dont  want  any  friends.     Why  should  you  ?  " 

"Well,  Nannie,  I  will  say  good  morning  to  you  for  the  pres- 
ent. I  trust  I  shall  find  you  in  a  different  mood  on  my  return. 
It  was  a  great  mistake  of  mine  to  appeal  to  your  consideration 
for  another  when  you  have  none  for  me." 

She  was  silent  until  he  reached  and  opened  the  door,  and 
then  she  exclaimed — - 

"  There's  a  man !  pretends  to  love  me,  and  goes  away  without 
a  kiss ! " 

For  the  first  time  this  appeal  failed  to  arrest  him.  She 
darted  after  him,  crying — 

"Criss  !  Criss  !  how  can  you  be  so  cruel  to  your  poor  Nannie, 
who  loves  you  so  ?  " 

"Nannie,"  he  said  coldly,  "I  want  to  be  loved  in  deeds  as 
well  as  in  words.  If  this  passes  your  power,  pray  tell  me  so 
plainly." 

Throwing  her  arms  round  him,  and  clinging  to  him  with  her 
whole  lithe  form,  she  exclaimed — 

"Why,  how  can  I  better  show  that  I  love  you  than  by  being 
jealous  of  you  ?  " 

Making  no  response  to  her  pressure,  but  speaking  still  in  the 
same  measured  tone,  he  replied — 

"Love  and  jealousy  are  two  things  wide  asunder  as  the 
poles.  Love  means  confidence,  devotion,  trust.  Jealousy 
means  self-love,  and  its  indulgence  is  the  worst  form  of  selfish- 
ness ;  for  it  is  a  selfishness  that  takes  the  most  pains  to  make 
others  miserable." 

"I  am  sure  you  are  not  miserable  with  me,"  she  said,  in  one 
of  her  most  winning  ways.  "No  one  ever  said  I  was  selfish 
before." 


BY   AND  BY.  '  291 

"  Then  do  not  force  me  to  say  it  now.  But  endeavor,  while 
I  am  gone,  to  think  over  the  cause  you  have  given  me  for  pain, 
and  resolve  to  he  what  I  wish  you  in  future." 

"It's  no  use.  I  can't  think  of  anything  when  you  are  away 
from  me,  besides  you — and  those  women !  Oh !  I  will  be 
revenged  on  them ! "  she  added,  with  a  dangerous  gleam  in  her 
eyes. 

With  a  quick  movement,  and  before  she  was  aware  of  his 
intention,  Criss  had  carried  her  back  into  the  room,  and  depos- 
ited her  on  a  sofa.  Then,  ringing  the  bell  violently,  he  sum- 
moned a  servant,  and  bade  him  hasten  with  all  speed  for  the 
doctor.  He  then  flung  himself  into  a  chair  at  a  distance  from 
her,  and  with  knotted  veins  and  heavy  breathing,  sat  motion- 
less, awaiting  the  doctor's  arrival. 

Nannie  lay  so  still  for  several  moments  as  to  surprise  him. 
Her  hand  was  over  her  face.  Presently  ha  caught  sight  of  her 
eyes  glancing  at  him  between  her  fingers.  Seeing  he  was 
watching  her,  she  said — 

"  Why  have  you  sent  for  the  doctor  ?     Are  you  ill  ?  " 

The  evidently  affected  unconsciousness  of  her  tone  gave  Criss 
a  keener  pang  than  he  had  yet  felt.  Could  it  be  that  she  was 
utterly  heartless  ?  He  would  ascertain  by  letting  her  suppose 
by  his  silence  that  he  was  ill. 

Failing  to  obtain  an  answer,  she  began  to  cry. 

"  She  does  not  care  whether  I  am  ill  or  not.  She  is  thinking 
only  of  herself,"  was  his  inward  commentary  on  this  new 
phase.  So  he  remained  mute  and  took  no  notice  of  her  tears. 
During  this  interval  he  changed  his  design.  He  had  sent  for 
the  doctor,  believing  that  Nannie's  conduct  could  only  be 
attributable  to  some  temporary  excitement  of  brain,  which 
required  to  be  allayed  by  medicine.  Seeing  that  she  was  de- 
liberately acting  a  part,  he  resolved  on  another  expedient. 

Nannie,  on  her  part,  finding  her  tears  unheeded,  judged  it 
time  to  try  some  other  means  of  attracting  his  attention. 

"  Criss  !  Criss  ! "  she  almost  screamed,  "  I  am  crying,  and 
you  don't  come  to  comfort  me ! " 

Still  no  response. 


293  BY  AND  BY. 

"Criss!  Criss  !  what  do  you  want  with  the  doctor?  If  it  is 
for  me,  I  won't  see  him  !  I  don't  want  him  to  know  how  cru- 
elly you  treat  me ; "  and  then,  seeing  him  still  unmoved,  she 
added — 

"  Or  how  naughty  I  have  been." 

The  expression  of  pain  on  his  face  did  not  relax  one  jot, 
although  Criss  was  beginning  to  suspect  that  her  conduct  was 
simply  the  result  of  a  determination  to  make  herself  completely 
his  master.  He  had  commenced  to  give  her  a  lesson  for  her 
good,  and  would  not  flinch  from  carrying  it  out,  cost  him  what 
it  might. 

His  prolonged  silence  was  beginning  really  to  alarm  her 
when  the  doctor  entered.  Wondering  what  was  coming,  Nan- 
nie shrank  into  a  corner  of  her  sofa. 

Criss  rose,  and  having  greeted  the  doctor  with  grave  courtesy, 
said  in  a  low  and  aifxious  tone,  as  if  in  the  room  of  one  stricken 
with  alarming  illness, — 

''I  wish,  Dr.  Markwell,  to  consult  you  respecting  the  effect 
likely  to  be  produced  on  a  child,  by  the  mother's  giving  way 
during  the  period  antecedent  to  its  birth  to  violent  and  unrea- 
sonable tempers.  Is  its  health  of  mind  or  body  in  any  way 
dependent  on  her  conduct  ?  I  wish  you  to  speak  without 
reserve,  as  I  have  the  most  serious  motive  for  asking." 

Looking  from  one  to  the  other,  and  divining  the  situation, 
the  doctor  said  that  the  effect  would  depend  in  a  great  measure/ 
upon   the  period  concerned ;  and   then  in   a  low  tone  he  put 
sundry  questions  to  Criss.     Having  got  his  answer,  he  looked 
very  grave,  and  said,  aloud, — 

"  It  is  the  most  sacred  of  a  mother's  duties  to  repress,  not 
merely  all  violence  of  demeanor,  and  everything  that  may  excite 
her,  during  the  period  in  question ;  but  also  every  thought  and 
disposition  which  she  does  not  wish  to  see  shared  by  her  off- 
spring. A  neglect  of  duty  in  regard  to  the  former  may  result 
in  the  production  of  idiots  or  cripples.  But  even  this  is  not 
the  greatest  misfortune  which  can  befall  a  family.  The  worst 
unhappiness  comes  from  the  depraved  and  ungoverned  charac- 
ters which  are  apt  to  be  engendered  by  a  neglect  of  the  latter 
duty." 


BY  AND  BY.  293 

"  Have  you  anything  in  the  shape  of  a  sedative  that  you  can 
recommend  to  my  wife  ?  She  has  become  liable  of  late  to  ac- 
cessions of  excitement,  which  cause  me  much  anxiety  both  for 
her  own  health  and  that  of  her  unborn  child." 

"Doctor!"  cried  Nannie  from  her  hiding-place  in  the  sofa 
cushions.  "  I  won't  take  anything  but  poison.  Send  me  some 
poison,  and  I  shall  be  grateful  to  you.  Oh,  my  father !  my 
father !  why  did  you  give  me  such  a  wicked  disposition ! " 

"  You  see,  doctor,  that  she  needs  your  care,  and  that  more 
than  is  possible  while  you  are  under  different  roofs.  Now  I 
have  a  proposition  to  make  to,  or  rather  a  favor  to  ask  of  you. 
I  am  obliged,  much  against  my  wish,  to  be  absent  from  home 
for  a  space  of  probably  three  or  four  weeks.  Will  you  either 
allow  my  wife  to  dwell  with  you,  under  the  care  of  yourself 
and  Mrs.  Markwell,  or  will  you  transport  yourself  and  your 
whole  family  hither,  and  take  care  of  Nannie  during  my 
absence  ?  " 

This  speech  brought  Nannie  into  full  possession  of  her  facul- 
ties. It  was  the  first  time  that  Criss  had  spoken  of  his  absence 
as  an  event  near  at  hand,  ^he  sat  up  and  gazed  wildly  at  him 
with  an  expression  full  of  agony  and  apprehension. 

This  demeanor  was  not  lost  upon  Criss.  Regarding  it  as 
one  of  the  artifices  by  which  she  sought  to  establish  her  sway 
over  him,  and  convinced  of  the  absolute  necessity,  if  they  were 
ever  ta  be  happy  together,  of  exhibiting  the  futility  of  her 
endeavor,  he  continued  his  address  to  the  doctor. 

"  I  am  sanguine,  doctor,  of  the  good  results  which  will  liow 
from  my  temporary  absence.  The  paroxysms  which  cause  me 
so  much  anxiety  and  alarm,  have  steadily  increased  in  fre- 
quency, duration,  and  intensity,  until  they  threaten  perma- 
nently to  impair  her  constitution,  ph3'-sical  as  well  as  mental. 
So  bad  have  they  become,  that  even  should  my  absence  have  no 
good  effect,  it  at  least  can  do  no  harm.  I  need  not  tell  you 
how  great  will  be  my  gratitude  should  the  kind  care  and  pro- 
fessional skill  of  yourself  and  your  wife  be  the  means  of  restor- 
ing to  my  beloved  wife  the  health,  and  to  both  of  us  the  happi- 
ness, which  this  terrible  malady  has  so  wofuUy  impaired." 
And  diss's  voice  faltered  as  he  spoke. 


294  .  BY  AND  BY. 

The  doctor  began  saying  that  he  and  his  wife  would  gladly 
do  all  in  their  power  to  hring  about  so  desirable  a  result,  and 
he  would  leave  it  to  lier  and  Mrs.  Carol  to  decide  which  of  the 
two  plans  proposed  would  be  most  convenient  and  agreeable. 
But  Nannie  interrupted  him,  declaring  that  she  would  have 
nothing  of  the  kind ;  that  she  hated  medical  women,  who  knew 
all  a  woman's  little  weaknesses  by  their  own ;  and  that  if  Criss 
chose  to  go  away  and  leave  her,  she  would  follow  him.  She 
knew  by  her  own  experience,  how  ready  he  was  to  pick  up 
women  and  carry  them  about  in  his  Ariel ;  and  she  was  not 
going  to  give  him  the  chance  of  doing  so  while  she  was  his 
wife. 

Criss  could  not  help  feeling  a  certain  sensation  of  amuse- 
ment at  the  unexpected  and  ingenious  jjerversity  of  this  new 
attack.     But  he  said  to  the  doctor, — 

"  You  see,  doctor,  for  yourself  what  a  task  you  will  be  under- 
taking. It  is  clear  that  it  will  never  do  for  you  to  have  her  in 
your  own  house.  These  high  walls  are  the  only  safe  asylum. 
I  intend,  wlien  you  have  transferred  your  family  liither,  to 
instruct  my  servants  to  take  their  orders  from  you  alone. 
You  will  thus  be  able  to  control  the  movements  of  your  pa- 
tient." 

"It  shall  be  as  you  wish.  May  I  ask  when  you  propose  to 
take  your  departure  ?  " 

"  So  soon  as  you  are  installed  here.  I  haVe,  out  of  consider- 
ation for  my  wife,  already  delayed  it  too  long.  The  sooner  I 
go,  the  sooner  I  shall  return.  I  wish  to  spend  the  last  month 
before  her  confinement  with  her.  Of  course,  if  you  report  her 
state  to  be  such  that  my  presence  will  be  prejudicial,  I  will 
delay  my  return." 

"You  call  yourselves  men,"  exclaimed  Nannie,  "and  you 
conspire  to  drive  a  jDoor  woman  mad." 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  Criss,  "we  conspire — do  we  not, 
doctor? — to  keep  a  poor  woman  sane,  who  by  yielding  to  wan- 
ton tempers  is  driving  herself  mad.  We  conspire,  too,  on 
behalf  of  the  unborn,  as  well  as  of  the  living." 

The  renewal  of  this  suggestion  made  Nannie  once  more  hide 


BT  AND  BT.  295 

her  face  in  the  cushions,  and  sob.  Presently  a  voice  came  from 
the  depths,  saying,  in  a  subdued  tone — 

''Tell  me  when  the  doctor  is  gone.  I  want  to  speak  to 
3^ou." 

Criss  whispered  a  few  sentences  to  the  doctor,  and  dismissed 
him.  He  then  seated  himself  beside  Nannie  on  the  sofa,  and 
awaited  her  pleasure. 

Presently  she  looked  up,  and  finding  herself  alone  with  Criss, 
said — 

"  You  don't  know  how  to  treat  a  woman.  You  will  never 
conquer  me  in  that  way.  Such  a  fuss  to  make  about  my  loving 
you  well  enough  to  be  jealous  of  you,  and  not  like  your  leaving 
me  !  Why,  I  have  done  nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  Mattie, 
my  sister,  was  ten  times  worse  than  ever  I  have  been.  I  have 
seen  her  strike  him,  and  pull  his  hair  out  by  handfuls.  And 
Frank  didn't  make  half  the  fuss  you  have  made  over  a  few 
words  said  by  poor  little  me." 

"  Poor  Frank,  what  a  happy  release  the  plague  must  have 
brought  to  him." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.     He  was  very  happy  with  Mattie." 

"  There  is  no  accounting  for  tastes.  He  must  have  been  very 
differently  constituted  from  me." 

"  He  understood  women " 

"  Women  !  yes.     But  not  furies  and  maniacs." 

"Women  who  are  not  logs,  like  the  tame  creatures  who  pass 
for  women  here.  Poor  Frank  !  he  loved  Mattie  properly,  and 
was  very  happy  with  her  in  consequence." 

"  I  wish  I  knew  his  prescription." 

"  It  was  a  very  simple  one." 

"Tell  me." 

"  It  cut  all  her  naughtiness  short,  and  made  her  good  for  a 
long  time  together." 

"Wliat  wasit?" 

"  I— I— can't  tell  you." 

"Do." 

Kannie  covered  her  face  with  her  plump  white  arm,  and 
bending  her  head  a  little  downwards,  looked  with  coy  shyness 


296  HI'  AND  nr. 

at  Criss  through  the  angle  of  her  elbow.  Presently  the  magic 
words  came  falteringly  forth,  and  she  said,  speaking  in  the 
smallest  of  voices — 

"He  beat  her!" 

Criss  turned  away  with  the  impatient  air  of  one  who  has 
been  tricked ;   but  Nannie  exclaimed — 

"  He  did ;  I  assure  you  he  did.  It  is  the  only  way  with 
■women  like  us.  We  must  fear  the  man  we  love,  to  be  good  to 
him.  If  he  had  not  beat  her,  she  would  have  made  him  as 
unhappy  as — as  I  have  made  you.  And  she  was  the  happier 
for  it  too  ! " 

"Am  I  to  infer,  then,  that  you  wish  me  to  follow  his  exam- 
ple?" 

"  I  often  think  I  should  behave  better  if  you  were  to  beat 
me,  and  make  me  afraid  to  be  nauglity.  Not  with  the  fist  or  a 
stick  you  know,  but  a  little  thin  whip,  or  switch,  which  only 
hurts  without  doing  any  injury.  Oh,  I  have  often  and  often 
seen  Frank  trying  to  kiss  away  the  red  wales  from  Mattie's 
lovely  skin,  while  the  tears  were  running  down  both  their 
faces.     Oh,  they  never  were  so  happy  as  then." 

"I  expect  my  wife  to  be  a  reasonable  being,  and  influenced 
by  other  considerations  than  those  of  bodily  chastisement.  Has 
affection  no  influence  upon  j^ou  ?  Are  you  not  amenable  to  a 
fear  of  unliajijjiness,  as  well  as  of  physical  pain — my  unhappi- 
ness  as  well  as  3'our  own  ?  " 

"  You  speak  to  a  woman  as  if  she  were  a  man,  and  open  to 
reason !  I  toll  you  a  woman  who  loves  is  not  a  reasonable 
being,  and  3'ou  must  not  deal  with  her  as  one." 

"A  man  who  loves  shrinks  from  making  her  he  loves  un- 
happy." 

"Then  why  do  you  make  me  so?" 

"I  do  not  make  you  so.  You  make  yourself  so  by  indulging 
baseless  fancies." 

"  Baseless !  when  you  speak  to  other  women  !  " 

"  Well,  we  will  see  what  our  n^edical  friends  can  do  for  your 
disease.     I  give  it  up." 

"  Oh,  don't  let  them  come  and  live  here.     If  you  must  go 


BY   AND  BY.  297 

away,  let  me  stay  here  by  myself.  I  will  try  to  be  good — i  will 
indeed.  And  you  mustn't  be  angry  with  your  Nannie  for 
loving  you  too  well." 


CHAPTER   V. 

The  vast  works  in  progress  in  Soudan  were  exciting  wide- 
spread attention  and  interest.  Already  had  the  Empire  of  the 
African  Plateau  made  such  an  advance  in  importance  and  civili- 
zation, that  the  probability  of  its  early  admission  into  the  Con- 
federacy of  Nations  was  everywhere  allowed.  Such  promotion 
as  this  was  beyond  the  dreams  of  the  previous  sovereigns  of 
Soudan,  and  the  people  were  elated  beyond  measure  at  the 
prospect.  Not  only  would  such  admission  be  a  recognition  of 
their  claim  to  rank  among  civilized  communities,  but  it  would 
be  worth  a  large  percentage  in  the  money  markets  of  the  world. 
Could  Criss  and  the  Emperor  secure  this  admission,  they  would 
gain  for  the  country  an  advantage  greater  than  that  which 
they  had  in  vain  sought  from  the  Stock  Exchange  of  Jerusalem. 
Even  the  people  of  Soudan  now  saw  the  impolicy  of  their  once 
proposed  repudiation. 

Of  course,  as  in  every  partially  civilized  community,  there 
were  people  whose  vested  interests  were  opposed  to  the  new 
state  of  things,  and  who  thought  that  their  interests  ought  to 
be  paramount.  In  order  to  be  recognized  as  sufficiently  civil- 
ized to  be  admitted  to  the  Confederation,  it  is  indispensable 
that  the  candidate-nation  prove  itself  amenable  to  the  ordinary 
processes  of  reason  in  its  various  public  departments,  and  that 
all  parts  of  its  system  be  consistent  with  each  other.  Thus, 
there  is  no  chance  of  entrance  for  a  people  whose  institutions 
rest  avowedly  on  a  basis  of  mere  tradition.  For  the  civilized 
world  has  learnt  by  experience  that  experience  is  the  only  trust- 
worthy basis  of  stability,  whether  in  public  policy,  religion,  or 
morals.    For  instance,  to  have  a  national  church,  or  not  to  have 


298  BY  AND  nr. 

one,  is  in  the  view  of  the  Elective  Council  of  the  Confederation 
a  matter  of  indifference ;  but  tlie  existence  of  a  Church,  or  of 
an}^  other  public  institution,  resting  avowedly  upon  a  tradition- 
al or  dogmatic  basis,  is  fatal  to  the  chances  of  the  claimant. 

Not  only  was  Soudan  at  this  time  inadmisbible  on  the  ground 
of  its  having  a  national  church  of  this  kind,  but  it  carried  its 
defiance  of  logic  and  consistency  to  so  incredible  an  extent  as  to 
maintain  two  national  institutions,  directly  opj)osed  to  each 
other,  both  in  princi^de  and  in  i:)ractice.  For,  in  its  National 
schools,  which  were  derived  from  the  Mahommedan  period  of 
the  country,  it  gave  an  education  which  consisted,  as  with  us, 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  intelligence  and  moral  sense  of  the 
children;  while  in  its  National  Church,  which  dated  from  the 
change  to  Christianity,  and  owed  its  existence  to  the  personal 
influence  of  the  royal  house  of  Abyssinia,  it  denounced  the 
human  mind  and  conscience  as  delusive  and  pernicious,  and 
claimed  the  assent  of  all  to  a  theory  of  the  Universe  and  system 
of  theology  which  failed  utterly  to  commend  themselves  to 
those  faculties.  Thus,  at  this  time  Soudan  was  in  the  category 
of  what  the  Council  is  accustomed  to  schedule  as  Lunatic 
Nations,  inasmuch  as  it  had  no  settled  principle  of  action,  and 
pulled  down  on  one  side  all  that  it  upheld  on  the  other. 

Enlightened  by  Criss,  it  was  now  the  Emperor's  ambition  to 
remove  this  stigma,  by  placing  the  national  preacher  in  accord 
with  the  national  schoolmaster.  His  pride  revolted  against  the 
notion  of  his  being  regarded  by  the  highest  civilizations  in  the 
world  as  but  a  Sovereign  of  fools.  And  pride,  Criss  found  to 
his  regret,  was  the  leading  motive  to  which  his  cousin  was 
amenable.  Next  to  pride,  and  obstinacy  on  behalf  of  his  own 
waj^,  came  the  sentiment  of  affection  for  his  cousin.  In  the 
conflict  between  these  feelings,  Criss  not  unfrequently  found 
himself  compelled  to  appeal  to  his  pride  in  order  to  turn  the 
balance  in  the  desired  direction.  It  was  by  acting  on  this 
motive  that  the  native  combativeness  of  the  young  ruler  had 
finally  been  enlisted  on  behalf  of  radical  reform.  Having  once 
resolved  to  win  the  approbation  of  Europe  by  abolishing  the 
absurd  incongruity  between  the  preacher  and  the  teacher,  the 


Br  AND  BY.  299 

very  hostility  of  the  vested  interests,  which  fattened  upon  the 
existing  system,  served  to  strengthen  his  purpose.  To  this  end 
he  listened  eagerly  to  all  that  his  cousin  had  to  say  on  the  sub- 
ject. 

Educated  under  the  impression  that  the  Priest  was  the 
natural  and  indispensable  sustainer  of  the  Crown,  he  was  sur- 
prised, as  well  as  delighted,  at  the  array  of  incontrovertible 
evidences  whereby  Criss  showed  him  that  the  Priest  has  never 
supported  anything  save  for  his  own  ends,  and  that  the  whole 
history  of  priesthoods,  of  whatever  age,  country,  or  religion, 
shows  those  bodies  to  be,  by  their  very  nature  and  constitution, 
utterly  and  irredeemably  selfish,  making  their  own  aggrandise- 
ment, individually^  or  corporately,  the  one  object  and  aim  of 
their  policy.  Criss  wound  up  his  homily  on  this  occasion  by 
saying,— 

"  Ah,  if  they  had  only  striven  for  man's  regeneration  here, 
with  but  a  fraction  of  the  persistency  with  which  they  have  in- 
voked the  hereafter  !  But,  as  it  is,  there  is  no  cruel  or  degrading 
superstition,  from  the  belief  in  demons  and  witchcraft,  to  that 
in  human  sacrifices  and  eternal  torture,  that  they  have  not  fos- 
tered and  turned  to  their  own  account.  I  repeat  but  a  trite 
historical  truth  when  I  say  that  the  priest,  as  priest,  is  both 
enemy  of  man  and  libeller  of  God ;  and  that  the  throne  which 
has  such  a  foundation  can  only  be  that  of  a  tyrant.  This,  so 
far  as  the  people  are  concerned.  With  regard  to  the  ruler,  it  is 
the  least  secure  of  bases.  For  the  very  theory  of  Ecclesiastic- 
ism  is  subversive  of  all  civil  government.  In  order  to  be  the 
ruler  and  redeemer  of  your  people,  jow  must  begin  by  effacing 
every  vestige  of  sacerdotalism  from  the  public  institutions  of 
the  country.  Of  course,  privately,  people  may  hold  and  teach 
what  they  please.  But  the  State  can  recognize  and  support 
only  what  is  consistent  with  the  equal  liberty  of  all  and  its  own 
supremacy ;  and  no  ecclesiastical  system  is  that." 

"But  my  own  throne,"  interrupted  the  Emperor,  "what 
becomes  then  of  my  divine  right  ?  They  have  always  upheld 
that." 

"  Divine  right,"  replied  Criss,  "  is  but  a  dogma.     Eeal  right 


300  BY  AND  BY. 

lias  no  need  of  dogma.  If  use  and  experience  do  not  justify 
your  tb rone's  existence,  no  authority  of  dogma  will  do  so,  and 
the  sooner  it  is  subverted  the  better.  But  the  fact  is,  where  a 
church  is  supreme,  neither  sovereign  nor  people  can  be  free.  It 
is  never  content  until  it  has  subjugated  the  souls  and  bodies  of 
men.  Such  is  the  nature,  avowed  or  concealed^  of  all  priest- 
hoods." 

"  Wlien  you  urge  me  to  take  up  a  position  in  antagonism  to 
the  priesthood,  do  you  not  mean  the  church?" 

"  That  is  the  very  confusion  that  nearly  cost  England  her 
own  church.  No,  the  priest  is  but  an  official  of  the  church, 
and  like  any  other  official,  is  apt  to  forget  that  he  exists,  not 
for  his  own  benefit,  but  as  servant  of  the  whole  body.  Keep 
the  official  under  as  strict  control  as  may  be  necessary  to  secure 
the  efficiency  of  his  department.  But  the  department  itself, 
that  is  the  church,  must  neither  be  destroyed  nor  cast  adrift 
from  the  State.  In  the  first  place,  it  has  a  vitality  that  makes 
its  destruction  impossible,  for  it  has  its  roots  originally  in  the 
aspirations  of  human  nature  towards  a  higher  life  than  that  of 
the  field,  the  factory,  and  the  laboratory.  In  the  second  place, 
if  cast  adrift  from  the  tempering  influences  of  the  State  and  the 
lay  power,  it  will  grow  up  in  the  hands  of  its  officials  to  be  a 
very  Uj^as  to  the  State.  A  free  church  in  a  free  State  is  an 
impossibility,  especially  where  the  church  is  possessed  of  over- 
whelming wealth,  prestige  and  jiower.  You  might  as  well  try 
to  imagine  a  free  army  in  a  free  State.  No,  the  State  alone 
can  make  and  keep  the  church  free  from  any  servitude  to  which 
it  is  really  liable,  namely,  that  which  arises  from  the  dominion 
of  dogma,  or  the  arrogance  of  an  hierarchy.  We  have  proved  all 
this  long  ago  in  England,  so  that  your  task  is  a  simple  one. 
You  have  but  to  make  your  church  in  reality  what  it  is  in 
name, — National.  And  this  you  can  only  do  by  releasing  it 
from  all  limitations  upon  opinion  and  expression,  and  allowing 
any  man  of  proved  education  aud  capacity  to  minister  in  it,  un- 
fettered by  tradition.  Your  church  will  then  be  the  fitting 
crown  to  your  schools  and  universities ;  and  the  whole  national 
part'  of  the  educational  apparatus  of  the  country  will  be  of  a 


BY  AND  BT.  301 

piece  throughout,  for  it  will  have  its  bases  in  the  human  mind 
and  conscience,  and  its  apex  in  the  sky,  with  God  and  idealized 
Humanity." 

"  But  what,"  asked  the  Emperor,  "  am  I  to  reply  to  my 
clergy  when  they  make  reproachfvd  appeal  to  me  to  know  what 
will  become  of  the  truths  of  religion  when  their  teaching  is  no 
longer  compulsory  ?  " 

''  Say,"  replied  Criss,  "  precisely  what  becomes  of  the  truths 
of  science  when  unshackled  by  foregone  conclusions.  They  will 
have  free  course  and  be  glorified.  Religion  will  cease  to  be  a 
worship  of  the  dead,  and  become  the  apotheosis  of  the  living, 
the  actual.  Whatever  is  good  and  useful  and  necessary,  can  be 
shown  to  be  so  by  evidence,  without  aid  from  dogma.  We  want 
no  authority  beyond  that  of  evidence  to  make  us  hold  that  the 
earth  goes  round  the  sun.  Indeed,  until  men  abandoned 
authoritative  tradition  on  that  subject,  they  believed  a  false- 
hood. No,  the  bases  of  that  which  is  good,  useful,  and  true, 
must  be  perpetually  verifiable,  otherwise  it  ceases  to  be  good, 
useful,  and  true." 

"But  surel}^  a  national  church  implies  a  national  religion?" 

"  By  no  means.  There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  national 
religion,  any  more  than  a  national  set  of  truths  or  facts,  or  a 
national  system  of  medicine,  science,  or  art.  There  may,  and 
should  be,  a  national  institution  for  educating  the  faculties 
which  are  devoted  to  such  ends,  and  for  extending  such  educa- 
tion, as  only  a  national  institution  can  do,  to  every  corner  of 
the  land  ;  but  the  phrase  'national  religion'  involves  as  great 
an  absurdity  as  the  phrase  '  national  God.'  " 

"  My  clergy  will  have  a  good  deal  to  unlearn,"  remarked  the 
Emperor. 

"  So  had  ours.  Yet  they  did  it.  But  those  who  care  for 
Humanity  and  Truth  will  not  mind  that." 

The  Emperor  shook  his  head. 

"  Vested  interests  are  strong  and  selfish,"  he  said.  "  I  can 
do  a  good  deal  to  make  it  worth  their  while,  but  I  shall  have  a 
nest  of  hornets  about  me." 


302  BY  AND  BY. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 


It  was  mainly  the  activity  of  the  "nest  of  hornets"  alhided 
to  by  the  Emperor,  that  made  Criss's  presence  in  Soudan  indis- 
pensable. The  physical  curse  of  the  country  might  be  dealt 
with  by  deputy.  Its  moral  curse  must  be  dealt  with  in  per- 
son. The  superstition  of  its  people  rendered  the  prolonged 
absence  of  their  sovereign's  good  genius,  as  Criss  was  popularly 
called,  a  hindrance  to  the  designs  in  progress  for  their  own 
benefit.  The  clergy,  seeing  their  cherished  system  of  thought, 
or  rather  no  thought,  menaced,  denounced  the  physical  im- 
provements, commenced  or  projected,  as  constituting  an  impious 
interference  with  the  Divine  Will.  Such  a  notion  could  be  met 
only  by  the  diffusion  of  a  knowledge  of  sound  reasoning.  In 
conjunction  with  some  of  the  more  advanced  citizens,  Criss  set 
to  work  to  found  a  propagandist  agency  for  this  purpose.  Tak- 
ing for  its  motto,  I^Yee  JEnqulri/  and  Free  Exj)ression,  this  in- 
stitution had  for  its  function  the  publication  and  distribution 
in  m3^riads  of  short  pithy  papers,  exposing  the  absurdities  of 
the  popular  superstitions.  I  happen  to  have  the  originals  of 
some  of  these  papers  by  me,  in  Criss's  own  handwriting.  It 
may  be  not  amiss  to  reproduce  one  or  two  of  them  here,  if  only 
to  illustrate  the  mental  condition  of  a  people  placed  by  the 
Confederate  Council  in  the  schedule  of  Lunacy.  The  following 
seems  to  have  been  levelled  at  the  objection  just  referred  to  as 
raised  by  the  priests  : 

"  The  Divine  Will. 

"According  to  the  priests  of  Soudan,  a  will  that  can  be 
thwarted  by  man.  According  to  common-sense  and  the  dic- 
tionaries, the  Supreme  Will.  People  of  Soudan,  require  oi 
your  priests  that  they  be  careful  of  their  definitions." 

Another,  also  in  his  own  hand,  was  in  answer  to  the  reproach 
of  Atheism  brought  against  the  new  school.     It  ran  thus  : 


BY  AND  BY.  303 

"  People  of  Soudan. 

"  Be  not  frightened  by  names.  There  is  no  Atheist,  save  he 
who  disbelieves  in  cause  and  effect.  To  believe  in  a  cause  of 
all  things,  is  to  believe  in  a  God.  Respecting  the  nature  of 
that  catise,  it  is  not  only  lawful  but  necessary  to  differ  until 
determined  by  positive  evidence  derived  from  a  due  compre- 
hension of  its  effects,  that  is,  of  Nature.  The  real  Atheists 
now-a-days  are  those  who  would  banish  God  from  the  living 
present  to  a  dead  past." 

And  this  also  : 

"  Science  ;   What  is  it  ? 

"  Sound  knowledge,  obtained  by  accurate  observation  of  care- 
fully ascertained  facts.  To  reject  the  scientific  method  for  any 
other,  is  to  reject  fact  for  fancy,  truth  for  falsehood." 

Hunting  up  the  records  of  our  own  country  at  a  corres^jond- 
ing  period  of  its  history,  Criss  founded  also  an  agency  called, 
The  Church  of  Soudan  Nationalization  Society,  in  exact  imita- 
tion of  the  famous  organization  which  played  so  important  a 
part  in  promoting  the  Emancipation.  In  the  prospectus  which 
he  wrote  for  the  chief  organ  of  this  Society,  a  high-class  weekly, 
also  named  after  its  British  prototype,  Criss  showed  the  Sou- 
danese how  alone  they  could  emulate  the  example  of  the  Eng- 
land they  so  greatly  admired.  '^  The  course  of  all  modern 
civilization,"  he  said  in  this  manifesto,  "  is  from  a  point  at 
which  human  life  is  entirely  subordinated  to  tradition  and 
authority  derived  from  a  remote  past,  to  a  point  at  which  the 
sole  appeal  is  to  the  cultivated  intelligence  and  moral  sense  of 
the  living  generations  of  men.  Desirous  of  traversing  that 
course,  as  England  has  done,  let  us  not  be  discouraged  by  its 
difficulties.  It  is  true  it  took  England  several  centuries  to 
make  the  journey.  But  then  she  had  to  do  it  by  herself  and 
in  faith,  for  she  had  no  example  before  her  to  encourage  her. 
It  is  not  so  with  us.  The  whole  civilized  world,  backed  by  the 
experience  of  the  ages,  is  on  our  side.     The  Reformation,  the 


304  BY  AND  BY. 

name  whereby  this  course  was  known,  released  England  from 
the  domination  of  that  ancient  enemy  of  human  freedom,  Rome, 
some  four  hundred  years  before  slie  detached  herself  from  the 
domination  of  Dogma,  which  was  of  Rome.  This  achieved,  the 
glorious  Beformation  bloomed  and  bore  its  fruits  in  the  more 
glorious  Emancijyation.  The  path  has  been  shown  us ;  we 
need  not  be  long  in  traversing  it." 

The  clergy  of  Soudan,  in  their  alarm  at  the  new  movement, 
sought  to  strike  at  its  promoters  through  the  neighboring 
peoples.  Divining  that  the  Emperor's  design  of  regenerating 
the  plateau  involved  the  redemption  of  the  Sahara,  they  set  to 
work  to  stir  up  the  desert  tribes,  the  people  of  Eezzan,  and 
those  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean,  by  asserting  that  it  was 
the  intention  of  the  Emperor,  under  European  influence,  to 
destroy  their  commerce  and  power  by  bringing  in  the  sea  to 
drown  them  out.  The  trigonometrical  survey  they  denounced 
as  an  invention  "of  the  Evil  One,  and  liable  to  be  visited  with  a 
retribution  such  as  that  which  had  followed  the  census  of 
David ;  and  Africa  was  still  so  dark  a  continent,  intellectually, 
despite  its  superabundance  of  physical  sunlight,  as  to  make  the 
idea  terrible  to  the  multitude. 

Such  was  the  position  wj/en  Criss  tore  himself  from  Nannie, 
whom  he  had  in  vain  endeavored  to  interest  in  his  work,  to 
make  his  first  post-nuptial  visit  to  Africa.  Occupied  as  he  had 
been  with  his  domestic  affairs,  and  inexpressibly  shocked  and 
bewildered  by  the  unexpected  development  in  his  wife  of  a 
j)assion  which  he  could  neither  comprehend  nor  moderate,  lie 
yet  had  not  allowed  himself  to  be  idle,  and  in  much  of  his  work 
he  found  Avenil  an  admirable  helper.  Not  in  his  missionary 
zeal  for  the  direct  spiritual  enlightenment  of  the  Soudanese  : — 
there  Avenil  had  no  sympathy,  ascribing  it  to  the  Semitic  ele- 
ment in  his  blood.  But  he  gladly  encouraged  his  Teutonic 
tendencies,  and  directed  all  the  consultations  of  his  engineers 
and  draughtsmen.  One  portion  of  Criss's  work  consisted  in  the 
construction  of  pictorial  representations  of  the  Africa  of  the 
future — Africa  as  he  hoped  to  make  it — no  longer  blasted  and 


BY  AND  BY.  305 

cursed  by  its  own  sunshine,  but  witb  its  Sahara  turned  into  a 
smiling  garden,  or  a  summer  sea.  Criss's  pictorial  designs  had 
already  done  wonders,  and  it  now  remained  only  to  conciliate 
the  dwellers  in  the  Oases,  the  most  superstitiously  attached  of 
mortals  to  their  green  homes.  Sooner,  it  was  said,  would  an 
Arab  give  up  his  hope  of  heaven,  than  part  with  his  beloved 
oasis,  the  birth-place,  dwelling-place,  and  final  resting-place, 
alike  of  himself  and  his  ancestors.  The  provinces  on  the  coast 
hailed  with  delight  a  scheme  that,  if  successful,  would  reverse 
the  geological  decree  which  attached  them  to  Africa,  and  re- 
store them  virtually  to  Europe,  as  well  as  relieve  them  of  the 
miseries  inflicted  by  the  desert  blasts  :  and  which,  even  if  un- 
successful, would  do  them  no  harm.  All  along  the  coast,  from 
the  low-lying  Gulf  of  Cabes,  from  the  Gulf  of  Sidra,  and  almost 
up  to  Egypt  itself,  came  offers  of  territory  through  which  to 
cut  the  canals  by  which  the  Mediterranean  was  to  flow  into  the 
desert,  and  a  communication  maintained  between  the  two  seas. 
Almost  up  to  Egypt.  There  the  tone  was  different.  Egypt 
would  not  hear  of  such  an  experiment.  She  not  only  placed 
her  veto  upon  it,  but  stirred  up  the  Arabs  inhabiting  the  Liby- 
an Oases,  the  most  depressed  portions  of  the  Sahara,  to  resist  it 
with  all  their  might.  This  action  of  Egypt  was  accounted  by 
the  Emperor  of  Soudan  an  additional  cause  for  the  enmity  he 
cherished  in  his  heart,  but  kept  secret  from  his  cousin. 

As  the  vast  design  got  wind,  all  Europe  and  Asia  Minor  be- 
came interested  in  it,  and  the  students  of  science  eagerly  fought 
over  their  conflicting  theories  respecting  the  probabilities  and 
consequences  of  success.  The  Geologists,  whatever  their  theo- 
ries on  these  points,  were  to  a  man  enthusiastic  on  behalf  of 
the  experiment.  They  even  afforded  useful  aid  to  the  project 
by  exhibiting  to  the  astonished  Arabs  the  fossil  remains  of 
fishes,  which  they  found  in  the  Sahara,  proving  that  it  was  the 
sea-bed  of  an  evaporated  ocean  of  the  Tertiary  period,  and 
therefore  possibly  designed  by  Providence  again  to  become  a 
sea.  The  Geologists  did  service  also  by  suggesting  the  proba- 
bility of  there  being  under-ground  reservoirs  of  fresh  water 
20 


306  BY  AND  HY. 

permeating  the  limestone  bed  of  the  Sahara.  Where  else  could 
all  the  water  which  annually  inundated  the  plateau  go  to  ? 
And  if  this  was  the  case,  doubtless  it  was  from  this  inexhaust- 
ible source  that  the  Oases  were  fed.  What  then  would  be 
easier  or  better  than  to  enlarge  the  apertures  and  let  more  of 
this  water  flow  through  to  the  surface  ?  Indeed,  it  might 
thus  be  a  fresh  instead  of  a  salt  sea,  that  the  Sahara  would 
become. 

Avenil  and  Criss  discussed  this  together.  They  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  was  probable,  that  on  making  an  extensive 
vertical  boring  into  the  Sahara,  the  first  flow  of  water  would  be 
fresh,  and  might  continue  so  for  some  time.  But  that,  ulti- 
mately, the  sea  which  was  at  present  kept  out  by  the  fresh 
water,  would  fill  in  the  limestone  cavities,  and  flow  through 
into  the  Sahara.  Should  it  only  come  through  in  sufficient 
quantity  to  counteract  the  loss  by  evaporation,  the  problem  of 
turning  the  desert  into  a  sea  would  be  solved,  and  that  without 
cutting  a  canal. 

They  communicated  the  notion  to  the  Emperor,  who  was 
hereditary  chief  over  a  small  oasis,  which  lay  close  below  the 
plateau,  considerably  to  the  east  of  Lake  Tchad,  and  therefore 
far  towards  Egypt.  He  caught  at  the  suggestion,  and  having 
purchased  the  rights  of  all  the  dwellers  on  the  oasis,  and  re- 
moved them  to  an  estate  at  a  distance,  he  sent  a  strong  force  of 
laborers,  with  powerful  excavating  machinery,  and  set  them  to 
work  to  bore  for  water  on  a  large  scale. 

The  result  of  the  experiment  was  satisfactory  beyond  expect- 
ation, considering  that  the  sj)ot  selected  was  by  no  means  one 
of  the  lowest  parts  of  the  desert.  The  water,  thus  far  perfectly 
fresh  and  pure,  came  through  in  such  abundance,  that  the 
whole  oasis  was  flooded,  and  continued  to  be  so,  as  well  as  the 
surrounding  desert  for  a  considerable  distance,  until  the  sands 
and  the  sun  prevailed  to  prevent  its  further  spread. 

Students  of  Science,  other  than  geologists,  concerned  them- 
selves with  the  doings  in  the  Sahara.  These  were  the  Meteoro- 
logists; especially  the  Meteorologists  of  Switzerland.     "In  the 


BY  AND  BY.  307 

glacial  period,"  said  they,  "Switzerland  was  an  iceberg.  From 
the  summit  of  the  Alps  to  beyond  the  Jura,  it  was  buried 
beneath  the  chilling  pressure  of  an  enormous  mass  of  ice,  bear- 
ing on  its  surface  giant  rocks.  The  great  desert  of  the  Sahara 
was  still  overflowed  by  the  weaves  of  the  sea ;  its  burning  sands 
not  yet  exposed  so  as  to  produce  that  glowing  wind  which,  now- 
a-days,  after  traversing  the  Mediterranean,  melts  aAvay  the 
winter  snows  on  the  Alps,  as  if  by  magic,  and  converts  Switzer- 
land into  a  blooming  country." 

"  To  restore  the  sea  to  the  Sahara,"  exclaimed  the  savants, 
"is  to  bring  back  the  glacial  period  to  Switzerland.  It  is  to 
ruin  the  climate  of  Europe." 

The  question  was  an  immense  one.  With  the  climate  of 
Euro]3e  would  go  the  civilization  of  Europe.  The  world  would 
have  existed  in  vain.  Every  scientific  coterie  on  the  face  of 
the  globe  was  absorbed  in  the  problem.  It  was  one  of  the 
"long  results  of  time,"  that  International  politics  became  a 
question  of  Meteorology.  This  was  something  gained  in  the 
long  and  weary  pilgrimage  of  Humanity.  But  what  would 
Alexander,  Julius  Caesar,  or  Napoleon  Bonaparte  have  thought 
of  such  a  controversy  between  nations  ? 

Criss,  as  was  his  wont,  had  recourse  to  Avenil.  Avenil  had 
enjoyed  the  discussion,  but  held  the  fears  to  be  groundless.  In 
the  first  place,  said  he,  the  sea  will  be  a  very  shallow  and  a  very 
warm  one,  and  the  bed  has  been  raised  so  high,  that  probably 
one-half  will  not  be  submerged.  Of  this,  however,  we  shall  be 
better  able  to  judge  when  the  survey  is  completed.  But  there 
is  another  reason.  The  greatest  cold  of  Europe  comes  with  the 
North-east  Trades  from  Polar  Russia.  These  winds  are  aggra- 
vated, if  not  entirely  caused,  by  the  heat  of  North  Africa. 
Cool  Africa,  and  you  mitigate,  not  increase,  the  rigor  of  the 
climate  of  Europe. 

The  states  bordering  on  the  Sahara  took  another  view  of  the 
question.  "What,"  they  asked,  "is  the  climate  of  Europe  to 
us  ?  We  have  a  right  to  escape  from  being  roasted  in  our  own 
ountry,  if  we  can." 

The  determination  taken  by  Criss  was  to  make  the  experi- 


308  BY  AXD  BY. 

meat,  as  an  experiment  to  he  aLandoned  in  the  event  of  snccess 
proving  pernicious.      There  would  he  no  difficulty  ahout  this. 

In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  Egypt — an  opposition  offered  on 
purely  selfish  grounds — Criss  succeeded  in  jiurchasing  the  most 
eligihle  portion  of  the  countr}'  hordering  on  the  jNIediterranean 
for  his  purpose.  It  lay  bet-ween  Tripoli  and  Egypt,  and  con- 
tained a  region  depressed  nearly  two  hundred  feet  below  the 
sea. 

The  spot  where  the  excavation  was  to  commence  was  from 
one  to  two  hundred  miles  inland.  Here,  and  at  numerous 
points  along  the  route,  was  collected  an  army  of  laborers,  with 
excavating  machinery  of  gigantic  power,  and  a  vast  array  of 
appliances  for  the  task.  The  plan  was  to  cut  a  deep  broad 
channel  in  the  solid  limestone  bed  of  the  desert  'to  the  sea, 
maintaining  the  same  depth  throughout,  so  as  to  make  way  for 
an  enormous  body  of  water  to  enter  at  once.  Thus  onh',  it  was 
held,  would  the  loss  by  evaporation  be  suj^plied.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  efforts  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  the  works  would  occupy 
several  j'^ears. 

To  Criss's  perplexit}',  the  Emj)eror  did  not  enter  so  heartily 
into  this  portion  of  the  scheme.  Taking  a  line  of  his  own,  he 
pretended  that  he  disliked  the  idea  of  an  open  junction  with 
the  ]\[editerranean,  by  which  hostile,  and  rival  trading  A^essels 
would  be  enabled  to  traverse  the  inland  sea  up  to  the  very 
borders  of  his  countr3\  He  might  be  a  match,  he  said,  for  his 
African  rivals,  but  could  not  compete  with  the  whole  world. 
Rather  than  have  an  open  channel,  he  would  prefer  to  bring 
the  sea  in  through  a  series  of  enormous  siphons.  It  was  only 
that  he  might  conciliate  the  nations  of  the  Confederac}^,  and 
secure  his  own  admission  into  it,  that  he  would  consent  to 
Criss's  scheme. 

Criss  felt  that  the  Emperor  had  not  given  the  real  grounds 
of  his  objection,  and  urged  him  further. 

The  Empe4-or  then  said  that  he  was  convinced  that  no  single 
channel  could  supply  the  Sahara,  and  that  he  thought  that 
tunnels  might  be  driven  with  advantage,  and  at  far  less  cost, 
into  the  sea  at  various  points  round  the  coast,  so  as  to  make 


BY  AND  BY.  309 

sure  of  the  water  reaching  any  isolated  portion  of  the  low  lands. 
He  proposed  to  attach  in  tliis  way  both  the  Athmtic  and  the 
Red  Sea.  A  tunnel  through  the  limestone  ranges  of  Abj'ssinia 
would  not  onl}^  bring  in  water  from  a  greater  height  than  at 
an}^  other  point— for  the  earth's  configuration  and  motion,  and 
the  iniluence  of  the  winds  and  tides,  were  such  as  to  keep  the 
Red  Sea  at  a  higher  level  than  any  other  on  the  African  coast 
— but  it  would  afford  a  cheap  and  convenient  mode  of  transit 
for  heavy  produce  to  an  Abyssinian  port.  At  any  rate,  he  had 
set  his  heart  upon  making  the  attempt,  and  should  do  his  best 
to  carry  out  the  latter  portion  of  the  project  at  once,  whilst 
Criss  was  operating  in  the  direction  of  the  Mediterranean.  He 
had  already  consulted  with  his  ministers,  as  well  as  with  the 
savants  and  imperial  engineers,  and  their  rejiort  had  secured 
the  co-operation  of  the  principal  capitalists  of  Soudan.  He 
concluded  by  challenging  Criss  to  a  race,  to  see  who  would  first 
bring  the  water  in,  himself  from  the  Red  Sea,  or  Criss  from  the 
Mediterranean. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Criss's  life  was  indeed  a  full  one.  While  engaged  in  the 
regeneration,  moral  and  physical,  of  a  continent,  his  own  heart 
was  perpetually  torn  asunder  between  the  two  characters  alter- 
nately enacted  by  his  wife  Nannie. 

Two  characters,  different  as  those  of  two  women.  The  one, 
so  ineffably  lovely  and  loving,  winning  and  kind,  in  the  ecstasy 
of  her  ardent  nature  abandoning  herself  wholly  to  her  love, 
and  in  the  perfection  of  her  adaptation  making  Criss  feel 
indeed  that  if  ever  woman  was  made  for  man,  Nannie  must 
have  been  made  expressly  for  him. 

The  other,  the  result  of  abandonment,  not  to  love,  but  to 
feelings  which  converted  love  itself  into  a  curse.  Nannie  knew 
aud   felt   that    Criss  loved  her  wholly,  .solely,  and  truly ;  but, 


310  BY  AND  BY. 

unaccustomed  as  slie  liad  ever  been  to  exercise  the  slightest 
control  over  herself,  she  now  gave  herself  up  to  the  dominion 
of  her  fancies,  until,  although  knowing,  and  in  her  calmer 
moments  admitting  them  to  be  but  fancies,  they  became  for  her 
more  than  all  facts ;  more  even  than  all  convictions,  which  to 
the  female  mind  are  too  apt  to  be  far  more  than  facts. 

These  fancies  all  took  one  shape.  She  understood  love  only 
as  a  monopoly.  Her  lover  was  unfaithful  to  her  if  he  had 
friendships,  interests,  thoughts,  occupations,  in  which  she  was 
not  all  in  all.  So  far  from  her  love  leading  her  to  take  'an 
interest  in  whatever  interested  him,  it  led  her  at  first  to  exhibit 
indifference  to,  and  then  vehemently  abuse,  every  object,  event, 
or  person  unconnected  with  her,  that  he  chanced  to  mention. 
Slowly  and  sadly  he  found  himself  driven  to  a  resolution  never 
to  allude  in  her  presence  to  any  subject  whatever,  save  herself. 
Even  his  own  life-long  friends  were  not  spared,  though  she  was 
never  tired  of  vaunting  her  own  early  associations. 

Criss  alone  saw  her  under  the  influence  of  this  side  of  her 
character.  In  society  her  brightness  and  vivacity  won  immense 
admiration,  and  admiration  was  a  thing  which  she  loved  too 
dearly  to  forfeit  by  an  exhibition  of  ill-temper.  While  the 
self-control  thus  manifested  abroad  led  Criss  to  hope  the  best 
for  her  sanity,  he  found  no  consolation  in  ascribing  her  out- 
rageous conduct  at  home  to  a  deliberate  disregard  for  him  and 
his  happiness.  One  of  the  traits  which  struck  him  as  most 
curious,  was  the  utter  indifference  she  showed  to  her  promises 
of  reformation,  and  this  only  a  little  while  after  she  had  iittei-ed 
them  with  such  exhibition  of  deep  repentant  sorrow  as  to  win 
his  forgiveness,  and  make  him  hope  that  this  was  really  the 
last  time. 

But  though  none  of  his  friends  as  yet  were  cognizant  of  his 
domestic  history,  they  could  not  fail  to  remark  that  he  with- 
drew more  and  more  from  their  society,  and  that  when  he  did 
appear,  he  had  little  of  the  serenity  and  cheerfulness  which 
had  been  wont  to  characterize  him.  Criss  had  a  good  and  tried 
friend  in  his  neighbor.  Dr.  Markwell,  a  physician  of  high 
repute,   and    married  to   a  medical   lady  whom  also  he  highly 


BY  AND  BY.  311 

esteemed.  But  it  was  only  by  stealtli  and  rarely  that  he 
ventured  to  consult  them.  He  feared  to  excite  ]!^annie's 
suspiciousness  and  jealousy  against  even  her  physician.  For 
the  doctor  to  be  able  to  influence  her,  he  must  retain  her  confi- 
dence. It  was  thus  that  when  they  met  in  Nannie's  presence, 
he  affected  to  give  but  a  qualified  as.sent  to  whatever  Criss  said. 

An  astute  investigator  of  the  maladies  of  mankind,  Dr. 
Markwell,  while  assuring  Nannie  that  it  lay  with  herself  to 
determine  her  own  fate,  whether  for  weal  or  woe,  inasmuch  as 
it  is  to  a  very  great  extent  in  the  power  of  an  individual  to 
promote  or  resist  insanity ; — while,  too,  he  gave  Ci'iss  hope  that 
her  mind  might  be  beneficially  distracted  from  its  fatal  pre- 
occiipation  by  the  advent  of  offspring,  yet  in  his  own  mind 
feared  the  worst. 

He  did  not,  however,  consider  it  his  duty  altogether  to  con- 
ceal from  Criss  the  nature  of  his  fears.  Having  had  much  ex- 
perience in  prisons,  and  observed  the  effect  produced  upon  the 
female  constitution  by  the  absence  of  a  habit  of  control  whether 
by  self  or  by  another,  he  told  Cyiss  how  that  when  once  a  young 
woman  has  discovered  her  power  to  produce  an  hysterical 
paroxysm  at  will,  she  is  liable  to  exercise  it  for  her  own  gratifi- 
cation, without  regard  to  the  distress  she  may  cause  to  others ; 
and  that,  the  habit  once  induced,  her  own  mental  and  moral 
nature  is  at  the  mercy  of  it,  and  madness  in  one  of  its  many 
forms  frequently  supervenes. 

'"It  was  jirecisely  such  a  condition  of  mental  intoxication," 
he  continued,  ''  that  in  former  times  it  was  the  ambition  of  the 
religious  fanatics  of  various  countries  to  produce  in  themselves 
or  their  converts.  From  the  ecstatic  utterances  of  a  pagan 
silnd,  to  the  hysterical  convulsions  of  a  Christian  revivalist,  the 
condition  and  its  character  were  the  same.  It  was  only  when 
the  law  sternly  forbade  fanatics,  who  mistook  their  own  igno- 
rance of  physiology  for  inspiration,  to  propagate  madness — as 
it  before  had  forbidden  pretended  sorcerers  to  trade  upon  cre- 
dulity— that  our  own  country  was  finally  freed  from  the  disgrace 
of  such  scenes.  Woman's  nature,  however,  remains  the  same. 
Its  emotional    side   requires  to  be  counterbalanced  by  the  most 


312  BY  AND  BY. 

carefully  developed  reason, — reason  of  her  own,  or  reason  of 
man.  If  it  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,  ten  thousand  times 
less  is  it  good  for  woman  to  be  alone,  or  uncontrolled  by  a 
strong  hand.  There  are  cases  in  which  kindness  to  her  is  but 
unkindness; — in  which  the  sense  of  duty  needs  the  stimulus  of 
fear  to  keep  it  up  to  the  mark." 

This  last  observation  reminded  Criss  of  Nannie's  strange 
utterances  respecting  her  sister,  and  the  regime  of  physical 
correction  on  Avhich  she  insisted.  He  mentioned  it,  and,  in 
reply  to  the  doctor's  commentary,  said,  smiling  sadly, — 

"  Well,  doctor,  if  my  wife  does  not  mend  until  I  beat  her, 
I  fear  she  must  continue  to  behave  ill  until  the  end  of  the 
chapter." 

"Ah,  that  is  because  you  have  a  theory  which  bears  no 
relation  to  experience,"  returned  the  doctor.  "Forgive  me 
for  saying  it,  but  it  seems  to  me  self-evident  that  if,  in 
order  to  spare  your  own  feelings,  or  in  deference  to  a  supposed 
principle,  you  abstain  from  the  course  best  calculated  to  benefit 
her,  you  are  acting  selfishly  instead  of  benevolently,  and  fol- 
lowing dogma  rather  than  experience." 

"  How  like  a  speech  of  Avenil's !  "  exclaimed  Criss. 

"  You  must  understand,"  continued  the  doctor,  "  that  there 
is  among  women  of  undeveloped  intellect,  when  they  have  done 
wrong,  a  certain  craving  for  chastisement,  growing  out  of  a 
rudimentary  sense  of  justice.  When  a  man  sees  that  he  has 
made  a  mistake,  he  manifests  his  repentance  by  resolving  not 
to  repeat  it.  Not  so  a  woman.  Half  the  power  of  priests  over 
women  in  old  times  consisted  in  their  habit  of  hearing  their 
confessions  and  imposing  penances.  The  husband  is  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  priest.  He  must  listen  sympathetically  to  his 
wife's  confessions,  and  assign  the  appropriate  penance,  or  inflict 
the  appropriate  penalty.  The  less  she  is  able  to  govern  herself, 
the  more  he  must  govern  her.  For  lack  of  the  husband,  it 
should  be  the  doctor.  But  I  really  consider  that  the  man  who 
compels  himself  to  be  harsh  to  the  woman  he  loves,  solely  for 
her  own  good,  performs  the  loftiest  act  of  self-renunciation 
possible  to  a  finite  being.     Of  course,  I  do  not  prescribe  ex- 


BY  AND  BY.  313 

treme  measures  at  the  very  outset.  I  mean  only  that,  kindness 
having  failed,  the  treatment  must  be  changed  for  one  of 
apj)arent  harshness.  Your  wife,  for  instance,  declares  that  she 
goes  wild  with  misery  the  moment  you  go  out  of  her  sight. 
Suppose,  then,  that  you  exercise  her.  in  the  art  of  self-control 
by  allowancing  her,  and  making  the  amount  of  time  you  pass 
with  her  dependent  on  her  success  in  repressing  that  feeling. 
She  might  be  induced  to  cut  a  paroxj^sm  short  if  she  knew  that 
her  indulgence  in  it  would  deprive  her  of  your  society  for  the 
next  four-and-twenty  hours  or  more." 

"Are  the  constitutional  differences  between  the  sexes  so 
radical  and  extreme  ?  "  asked  Criss. 

"  They  are,  indeed.  I  do  not  mean  to  say,  however,  that  man 
is  never  as  foolish  and  irrational  as  ever  woman  can  be.  It  is 
possible  that  at  times  he  can  beat  her  in  that,  as  in  most  other 
things ;  but  when  a  man  is  so,  it  is  in  spite  of  his  sex,  and 
when  a  woman  is  so,  it  is  owing  to  her  sex " 

"  All  the  more  cause  for  extra  tenderness  and  patience,  then," 
interrupted  Criss ;  but  the  doctor  went  on  without  heeding. 

"The  history  of  woman's  efforts  to  reverse  Nature's  decree 
is  one  of  the  most  curious  in  the  world.  Ridiculed  by  Aristo- 
phanes, there  are  not  wanting  some  to  return  to  the  charge 
even  now,  that  is,  in  less  advanced  countries.  Here,  our  women 
have  long  ago  learnt  to  recognize  the  fact,  and  to  make  the  best 
of  it  without  striving  to  alter  it.  But  it  was  only  after  the 
men  had  consented  to  their  making  the  attempt,  and  so  demon- 
strating their  limitations  by  experience,  that  they  settled 
finally  into  their  own  place.  I  confess,  as  a  medical  man, 
I  cannot  see  how  any  woman  that  was  wife  and  mother,  ever  so 
mistook  her  own  nature." 

In  one  respect  Criss  followed  the  doctor's  advice.  He  ceased 
to  go  through  the  form  of  consulting  or  affecting  to  please 
Nannie,  in  any  arrangements  he  was  obliged  to  make.  He 
simply  said  "  Nannie,  I  shall  be  absent  for  so  many  hours,  or 
days."  And  when  she  broke  into  angry  reproaches, — "Nannie, 
you  are  taking  the  very  means  to  lengthen  my  absence.  I 
have  not  now  for  the  first  time  to  assure  you  that  the  more  you 


314  BY  AND  BY. 

keep  this  temper  under,  the  more  I  sliall  be  with  you,  and  the 
happier  we  sliall  be." 

The  birth  of  a  child  served  to  restore  hope  and  happiness  to 
both  husband  and  wife.  Criss  had  looked  forward  to  this  event 
with  intense  eagerness,  believing  that  all  depended  upon  it. 
With  such  a.  fact  ever  present  to  her,  Nannie  surely  would  not 
now  indulge  in  fancies. 

It  was  a  girl — as  Nannie  ardently  desired — but  she  was  not 
quite  reconciled  to  her  being  called  Zoe,  after  the  mother  whom 
Criss  had  never  seen.      It  made  her  jealous  of  that  mother. 

Nannie  had  borne  Criss's  absence  in  Africa  far  better  than 
the  scene  at  his  departure  had  suffered  him  to  hope.  Doctress 
Markwell  had  read  her  rightly  when  she  said  to  Criss, — 

"  Take  courage.  AVithout  you  at  hand  to  be  distressed  at 
fancies,  she  will  not  care  to  indulge  them.  She  has  not  reached 
the  stage  at  which  she  would  take  delight  in  tormenting  her- 
self without  your  being  a  sharer.     I  hope  she  never  may." 

It  took  some  time  after  his  return  for  the  old  fancies  to  show 
themselves.  And  then  Zoe  arrived  opportunely  to  allay  Criss's 
reviving  anxiety.  With  the  child  came  all  joy  and  forgetful- 
ness  of  past  troubles, — such  utter  forgetf ulness  on  Nannie's  part 
of  her  own  extravagances  of  behavior,  as  to  kindle  in  Criss  a 
new  apprehension.  But,  refusing  to  entertain  it,  he  gave  him- 
self up  to  the  delights  of  the  situation.  This  new  idea  was  that 
Nannie,  though  supremely  endowed  as  a  woman,  was  devoid  of 
that  essential  element  of  humanity,  recognized  by  him  under 
the  name  of  Soul.  He  could  not  otherwise  account  for  her 
utter  lack  of  self-consciousness  or  sense  of  responsibility  for 
past  conduct.  The  child  bid  fair  to  resemble  its  mother,  save  in 
one  respect.  It  had  its  father's  eyes.  Surely,  then,  his  Zoe 
at  least  would  have  a  soul ! 

Nannie  made  an  admirable  mother,  as  she  had  always  boasted 
she  would.  The  pride  she  took  in  her  infant,  and  consequent 
eagerness  to  exhibit  it  to  visitors,  led  Criss  to  hope  that  she  had 
got  the  better  of  another  weakness, — namely,  her  aversion  to 
all  society  save  that  of  himself. 

In  short,  so  conformable  was  Nannie  to  all  requirements  of 


BT   AND  BY.  315 

propriety,  health,  and  motherly  perfection,  that  Criss  began  to 
think  that  the  painful  scenes  of  altercation  and  violence  which 
had  made  him  so  wretched  must  have  been  but  an  ugly  dream, 
or  at  worst  but  a  spasmodic  throe  of  nature  over  the  produc- 
tion of  a  first-born. 

The  doctor  owned  himself  surprised  at  the  completeness  of 
the  change ;  but  he  was  too  w^ell  habituated  to  note  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  functional  and  the  radical  to  express  him- 
self sanguinely  about  its  pe'rmanence.  He  knew  the  instinctive 
liability  of  young  mothers  to  use  their  infants  as  a  weapon  of 
coercion  against  the  timid  and  doting  father.  "  Thwart  and  irri- 
tate me,  and  your  child  suffers  in  consequence,"  was  a  dictum 
he  had  too  often  known  uttered  or  signified  in  pursuance  of  an 
utterly  irrational  demand. 

Fully  impressed  with  the  belief  that  Nannie's  malady  had 
resulted  from  physical  causes,  Criss  trusted,  by  keeping  her  be- 
yond the  influence  of  those  causes,  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of 
the  malady.  He  was  so  happy  now  in  his  own  and  Nannie's 
happiness  in  the  society  of  their  infant,  that  it  seemed  to  him 
an  act  of  wantonness  to  do  aught  that  might  endanger  its  con- 
tinuance. 

Kannie  thought  differently.  She  longed  to  multiply  her  tri- 
umphs in  the  newly-won  domain  of  maternity,  and  scoffed  at 
the  notion  of  her  being  less  robust  in  constitution  than  any 
other  of  her  sex.  She  even  ascribed  to  coldness  and  indiffer- 
ence to  her  pleasure  the  tender,  self-denying  care  with  which 
Criss  sought  to  shield  her  from  aught  that  might  excite  and 
injure  her.  In  short  she  manifested  all  the  symptoms  of  a  re- 
lapse into  the  old  sad  state. 

Entreating  her  to  be  calm,  he  sought,  by  pleading  the  danger 
to  their  child  and  their  own  happiness,  to  win  her  consent  to 
a  regime  that  might  prevent  a  return  of  the  illness  which  had 
already  caused  them  so  much  misery. 

''  Illness  !     What  illness  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  You  know  all  that  we  went  through  together,  darling,  be- 
fore our  little  one  w^as  born/'  he  said.    "  Well,  that  was  entirely 


316  BY  AND  BY. 

the  result  of  your  delicacy  of  constitution.  I  love  this  present 
happiness  too  well  to  risk  a  return  of  that  evil  time." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about,"  she  returned. 
"I  was  not  ill.  I  was  only  jealous,  as  I  had  a  right  to  be  ; 
and  as  I  shall  be  again  unless — unless —  Oh,  dear  Criss!  you 
must  not  say  or  imagine  such  things.  Think  what  will  become 
of  baby,  if  j^ou  upset  me,  and  make  me  ill  with  such  talk ! " 

"■  Ah,  if  you  knew  how  terrible  has  been  my  anxiety,  you 
would  not  urge  me  to  act  against  my  better  judgment." 

"  A  fig  for  better  judgment !  You  mean  that  you  no  longer 
care  for  me,  or  you  would  let  me  have  my  own  way  in  every- 
thing." 

''Why,  Nannie,  what  an  actress  you  would  have  made.  You 
said  and  looked  that  speech  to  perfection." 

"I  was  not  acting  ;  I  meant  it." 

""Well,  do  not  excite  yourself,  I  entreat.  Trust  to  me  to  do 
what  is  best.  My  precious  wife  does  not  know  everything  that 
is  in  the  world,  or  even  in  her  own  constitution,  though  I 
acknowledge  her  to  be  a  wonderful  little  woman.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  when  you  are  quite,  quite  strong,  and  I  have  talked 
to  Doctor,  and  you  to  Doctress  Markwell,  we  can  do  numbers  of 
things  which  would  be  dangerous  to  you  now.  I  love  my  !N"an- 
nie  far  too  well  to  run  the  chance  of  losing  her,  especially  by 
an  imprudence  that  can  so  easily  be  avoided." 

"I  know  best,  without  consulting  any  doctors,"  she  ex- 
claimed. "  I  believe  you  are  in  league  with  them  against  me. 
They  always  say  just  what  you  want  them  to."  And  she  broke 
into  a  fit  of  that  hysterical  sobbing  of  which  Criss  had  so  lively 
a  recollection  and  dread. 

He  had  learnt  by  experience  that  to  attempt  to  coax  her  out 
of  those  fits  by  soft  speeches,  was  as  great  a  mistake  as  to  seek 
to  appease  a  spoilt  child  by  giving  it  everything  it  cries  for. 
Resuming,  therefore,  once  again  the  stern  tone  and  aspect 
which  he  had  hoped  were  done  with  forever,  he  said, — 

"  Very  well,  Nannie ;  if  j^ou  can  act  thus  now,  it  is  ample 
proof  that  you  are  unfit  for  the  liberty  which  you  desire.  I  in- 
tend to  regard  your  power  of  self-control  as  my  index  to  the 
state  of  your  health." 


SY  AND  BY.  317 

"  I  care  for  nothing  of  that  sort !  I  am  master  now  !  Look 
here,"  she  cried  excitedly,  and  holding  the  child  aloft  in  her 
arms ;  "  do  you  see  this  ?  This  makes  me  master ;  and  I  mean 
to  have  my  own  way  in  everything,  or  you  and  your  child  will 
be  the  worse."     And  she  glared  almost  maniacally  upon  him. 

By  a  movement  too  sudden  for  her  to  thwart,  he  snatched 
the  child  from  her,  for  he  really  feared  for  its  safety.  Then 
summoning  the  nurse,  he  said, — 

"  Take  the  child  into  your  own  room,  and  do  your  best  with 
it  there  until  the  arrival  of  the  wet-nurse,  who  will  be  here  to- 
morrow." And  he  placed  his  arm  around  Nannie,  to  keep  her 
from  rushing  after  the  child. 

After  two  or  three  vain  attempts  to  escape,  she  sank  back 
into  her  sofa,  moaning  and  sobbing. 

When  they  were  alone  he  said, — 

"Now"  take  this  sedative,  and  sleep  yourself  good  again. 
And  whenever  you  find  the  naughty  fit  coming  over  you,  re- 
member that  even  with  the  child,  I  am  still  master,  and  intend 
to  be  so." 

"  I  want  my  child,"  she  moaned,  piteously. 

"Not  because  you  love  it,"  returned  Criss. 

"I  do  love  it.  It  is  the  only  thing  I  love,  now  that  I  hate 
you." 

And  is  it  because  you  love  it,  that  you  insist  upon  making 
yourself  so  ill  that  you  could  not  nurse  it  without  making  it  ill 
likewise  ?  All,  Nannie,  dear,  you  have  yet  to  learn  what  real 
love  means, — even  the  love  of  a  mother  for  her  infant." 

He  prevailed  at  last,  and  she  took  the  draught,  declaring 
that  she  only  did  so  on  condition  that  she  should  have  the  child 
back  in  the  morning.  He  did  not  accede  to  the  condition,  but 
the  night's  rest  took  such  good  effect,  that  the  doctor  found  no 
reason  to  foibid  the  child  returning  to  her.  He  complimented 
Criss  on  the  wet-nurse,  saying  it  was  a  master-stroke,  arid 
would  doubtless  bear  repetition  if  necessary.  As  for  Nannie, 
she  was  so  terrified  by  it,  that  several  days  passed  before  she 
again  ventured  to  assert  her  own  will  in  opposition  to  Criss's. 
Her  first  utterance  to  him  in  respect  to  the  occurrence  of  that 
night  was, — 


318  BY  AND  BY. 

"It  ought  to  show  you  how  perfect  a  woman  you  hare  got 
for  a  wife,  when  I  gave  up  ray  own  will  for  the  sake  of  my 
child." 

Criss  was  not  aware  that  she  had  done  so,  but  thought  it  was 
rather  for  her  own  sake  ;  but  he  did  not  care  to  contradict  her 
on  a  mere  matter  of  opinion.  And  happiness  was  restored,  for 
she  forebore  f or  the  jjresent  to  renew  the  controversy  which  had 
caused  the  interruption  to  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Criss  endeavored  to  compensate  for  his  absence  from  the 
scene  of  his  operations  in  Africa,  by  the  constancy  of  his  inter- 
course by  telegraph.  One  room  in  his  house  was  set  apart  as 
his  study,  and  one  part  of  this  study  was  occupied  by  a  tele- 
graphic ajjparatus,  and  wires  which  communicated  with  all  the 
principal  centres  of  his  interest.  Thus,  he  had  his  own  private 
wire  to  Avenil's  study ;  another  to  Bertie's  cottage ;  one  to  the 
Triangle ;  another  to  his  banker's ;  and  he  had  also  engaged 
the  exclusive  use  of  one  to  Africa,  with  branches  to  Bornou  and 
the  works  in  the  desert.  In  this  room  he  sat,  and  conducted 
his  various  correspondence,  arrangements  being  made  to  give 
notice,  by  means  of  signals  in  other  parts  of  the  house,  when 
his  attention  was  required  in  the  telegraph  room.  As  his 
library  was  also  here,  and  the  walls  were  covered  with  maps 
and  drawings,  as  the  shelves  with  books,  Criss,  as  he  sat  there, 
was  surrounded  by  the  whole  world  of  the  past  and  present, 
while  he  busied  himself  about  that  of  the  future. 

In  his  care  for  the  remote,  whether  in  time  or  in  space,  the 
near  was  not  forgotten,  and  poverty  and  sickness  which,  in 
spite  of  all  the  advances  made  by  civilization,  will  still  occasion- 
ally thrust  their  ugly  heads  into  view,  found  in  him  an  ever 
ready  and  sympathetic  alleviator.  In  the  early  days  of  his 
married  life,  he  had  hoped  to  interest  Nannie  in  some  of  his 


BY  AND  BY.  319 

local  charities,  but  had  been  compelled  to  give  up  the  idea. 
She  could  scold  people  for  being  bad  managers,  and  by  some- 
thing more  direct  than  implication,  praise  herself ;  but  her 
sympathies  seemed  incapable  of  the  extension  necessary  to  con- 
stitute charity.  As  she  could  not  with  any  advantage  accom- 
pany Criss  on  his  rounds,  and  resented  his  absences,  he  had 
gradually  withdrawn  in  a  great  measure  from  making  them, 
leaving  his  work  to  be  done  by  deputy — an  office  gladly  under- 
taken by  the  benevolent  Bertie. 

Of  Criss's  wealth,  and  the  employment  it  gave  him,  Nannie 
had  long  been  jealous  ;  but  now  her  jealousy  extended  itself  to 
his  home  occupations,  which  he  carried  on  in  his  study.  Not 
that  she  was  excluded  from  this  apartment,  for  Criss  delighted 
in  being  able  to  glance  from  his  work  to  her,  as  she  sat  on  the 
soft  carpet  playing  with  the  little  Zoe ;  but,  unluckily,  it 
occurred  to  her  one  day,  that  he  could  not  be  thinking  entirely 
of  her  while  occupied  about  other  matters.  .^ 

"  Please  explain,  Nannie,"  he  said  one  day,  on  her  persisting 
in  reproaching  him  for  his  engrossment.  "  Please  explain 
exactly  what  it  is  you  wish  of  me  ;  for  I  am  really  at  my  wits' 
end  to  understand.  Is  it  that  you  wish  me  to  cease  to  be  a 
man,  engaged  in  work  worthy  of  a  man,  and  to  become  a  wo- 
man, with  thoughts  for  nothing  but  love  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Nannie,  stoutly,  "  I  want  you  to  think  of  noth- 
ing but  me, — and  little  Zoe  ;  but  not  much  of  her,  or  you  will 
make  me  jealous  of  my  own  child." 

"  Nannie,  there  was  once  a  poet  who  wrote  to  his  lady-love  : 

"  '  I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honor  more.' 

What  do  you  think  of  the  sentiment  ?" 

"  I  should  have  been  jealous  of  'honor.'  " 

"  You  mean /or  honor,  for  his  honor." 

"No,  I  don't.     I  mean  what  I  said." 

"  There  was  another  poet,  who  described  a  wife  of  whom  her 
husband  was  so  fond,  that  he  could  not  tear  himself  from  her 
side  to  fulfil  the  duties  to  which  he  was  in  honor  bound.     One 


320  BY  AND  BY. 

night  he  awoke  from  his  sleep  to  find  her  sitting  up  and  mnr- 
muriiig,  as  she  reflected  over  the  career  and  character  he  was 
losing  for  her  sake, — 

"  *  Ah  me,  I  fear  me  I  am  uo  true  wife.' 

Would  you  like  to  be  regarded  by  your  husband  as  being  'no 
true  wife/  when  you  seek  to  detain  him  from  his  duties  ?  " 

"  I  should  have  liked  that  man,"  she  said.  "  He  loved  his 
wife  as  a  woman  ought  to  be  loved.  He  would  have  owned  me 
to  be  true  woman,  if  not  true  wife." 

At  this  moment  Criss's  attention  was  called  off  by  the  sound- 
ing of  the  telegraph  signal.  Before  he  was  aware  what  she 
was  about,  Nannie  had  snatched  a  heavy  ruler  from  the  table, 
and  rushing  to  the  apparatus,  with  a  tremendous  blow  smashed 
it  to  2)ieces. 

*'  There  !  "  she  exclaimed,  to  Criss.  "  You  may  think  your- 
self fortunate  it  was  not  your  head.  It  may  come  to  that  yet, 
for  your  treatment  of  me." 

Criss  had  learnt  the  futility  of  bandying  words  with  her 
when  such  a  mood  was  on  her.  Fearing  for  the  safety  of  the 
child,  he  placed  himself  between  her  and  it,  and  summoned  the 
nurse. 

"  Go  at  once  to  Dr.  Markwell's,"  he  said,  when  the  nurse 
arrived,  "  and  give  my  compliments  to  him  and  Mrs.  Markwell, 
and  say  that  I  shall  be  much  obliged  by  their  allowing  you  and 
the  child  to  stay  there  until  some  other  arrangement  can  be 
made." 

"And  when  am  I  to  see  it  again?"  asked  Nannie,  as  the 
nurse  disappeared,  and  Criss  closed  the  door  after  her. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  with  simulated  indifference,  "  I  should  think 
a  week  or  two  will  probably  see  you  over  this  attack.  It  will 
be  time  enough  to  think  about  it  then." 

And  he  set  himself  to  examine  the  mischief  done  to  his 
apparatus. 

"  I  shall  go  after  my  child,"  exclaimed  Nannie,  darting  to- 
wards the  door. 

"You  cannot  leave  the  room.  I  fastened  the  door  as  T  let 
the  nurse  out.     Your  violence  suggested  the  precaution." 


BY   AND  BY.  321 

"  I  won't  stay  in  the  house  to  be  outraged." 

"  Ko  one  wishes  you  to  do  so.  But  you  do  not  leave  it  until 
you  are  in  your  right  mind,  and  then  desire  to  do  so.  It  de- 
pends entirely  on  yourself  when  that  may  be." 

"  Do  you  consider  me  mad,  then  ?  " 

"  You  force  me  to  wish  sometimes  that  I  did." 

"  To  wish  that  I  was  mad?" 

"  Yes  ;  I  should  then  be  able  to  account  for  your  behavior. 
I  would  rather  have  you  mad  than  bad,  heart-broken  as  it 
wou4d  make  me." 

"  What  does  the  doctor  say  about  me  ?  " 

"  He  thinks  that  whatever  you  may  be  at  present,  you  are 
endeavoring  to  drive  yourself  into  insanity." 

''  Is  that  Mrs.  Markwell's  opinion,  too  ?  " 

"  She  says  you  are  no  more  mad  than  she  is." 

"  What,  then,  does  she  ascribe  my  conduct  to  ?  " 

"  Uncontrolled  wilfulness  and  inordinate  vanity." 

"  Nothing  else  ?  " 

"  Not  that  I  know  of." 

"  She  is  right,  so  far ;  but  she  omits  the  principal  cause." 

"May  I  know  it?" 

"  You  do  know  it.     I  have  told  you  often." 

"  Tell  me  again." 

"  Love  for  you." 

"  Love  for  me  makes  you  pain  and  distress  me  by  such  con- 
duct!" 

"  I  can't  help  it." 

"  Nannie,  answer  truly.     Do  you  try  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  time,  when  my  feelings  move  me.  You  don't 
know  what  it  is  to  have  feelings." 

"  I  know  what  it  is  to  have  feelings  for  others.  You  make  me 
fear  that  yours  are  only  for  yourself.  Are  you  the  happier 
when  you  have  given  way  to  what  you  call  your  feelings,  and 
made  me  wretched,  and  yourself  ill  and  ugly  with  passion,  ajid 
driven  your  child  away — " 

"  U  gly !  me  ugly ! "  And  she  ran  to  a  mirror,  and  took  a 
rapid  look  at  herself ;  and  then,  finding  the  survey  satisfactory, 
21  . 


322  JiY  AND  BY. 

she  rushed  close  up  to  Criss,  and  gazed  with  the  most  exquisite, 
winning  look  imaginable,  into  his  face,  and  in  a  pleading  tone 
asked, — 

"Am  I  really  ugly,  Criss  dear?  I  don't  think  I  am.  Do 
yoti?  "  and  putting  her  arms  round  him  she  clasped  him  tightly 
to  her. 

"Is  it  then  because  you  believe  no  man  can  resist  you,  that 
3'ou  act  in  such  a  way?"  he  enquired.  "Believe  me,  Nannie, 
even  you  may  try  j'our  power  too  far.  You  have  done  much  to 
prove  to  me  that  even  my  patience  is  limited." 

"  Why,  what  would  you  do  ?  " 

"  Set  you  and  myself  free  from  a  tie  that  has  become  a  bond- 
age." 

"  Yes,  I  know  that  is  what  you  want.  But  I  won't  let  you. 
I  would  murder  her,  and  you,  and  myself,  too." 

"  Her  !  your  child  ?  " 

"No,  no,  the  woman  you  want  to  get  free  from  me  for." 

"  Oh,  I  see.  You  prefer  that  we  should  continue  to  be  miser- 
able together,  than  be  happy  apart." 

"  You  don't  deny,  then,  that  there  is  a  woman  for  whom  you 
wish  to  give  me  up.  I  thought  you  had  some  motive  for  trying 
to  kill  me  by  3^our  unkindness." 

"  Why  should  you  give  me  credit  for  acting  from  motives, 
when  you  deny  doing  so  yourself  ?  " 

"  Why  should  you  care  about  other  women  when  you  have 
me?" 

"  It  seems  to  give  you  great  pleasure  to  think  that  I  do  so." 

"  I  think  it  because  you  can't  help  liking  women.  You  like 
me  too  well  not  to  like  women." 

"  Oh  ;  and  so  you  would  behave  better  to  me  if  I  was  less 
agreeable  to  you  as  a  husband  !  " 

"  Yes ;  it  comes  so  natural  to  you  to  be  nice  with  me,  that  I 
cannot  help  thinking  you  must  have  learnt  it  with  others." 

"  I  see.  I  shall  have  to  imitate  the  example  of  the  knight 
who  always  clad  himself  in  his  armor  before  caressing  his  wife, 
for  fear  she  should  find  the  process  too  agreeable." 

"  I  know  what  men  are.     You  don't  deceive  me  when  you  pre- 


BY  AND  BY.  323 

tend  to  be  thinking  only  of  my  good.  You  will  send  me  out  of 
my  mind  by  it,  and  then  you  will  be  sorry,"  And  she  began 
to  cry. 

"There  is  one  thing,  Nannie,  that  you  have  never  yet  got 
properly  into  your  understanding : — that  I  took  you  to  be,  not 
my  master,  but  my  mistress.  So  long  as  you  strive  to  be  both, 
you  shall  be  neither.  That  is  positive  and  certain.  You  have 
but  to  choose." 

"  May  I  choose  now  ?  " 

"  If  you  please." 

"  I — don't — want — to  be  your — master." 

"  You  declare  it  faithfully,  and  will  not  try,  in  future  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  in  a  low  penitent  voice,  gazing  down  while 
she  spoke,  and  taking  the  measure  of  her  own  exquisite  little 
foot,  as,  protruded  from  beneath  her  dress,  it  lay  close  along 
side  of  his. 

He  was  silent  awhile,  pondering  the  propriety  of  giving  her 
another  trial,  bvit  feeling  that  she  had  not  yet  really  repented 
of  her  recent  outrageous  behavior. 

Finding  that  he  did  not  speak,  she  said,  coaxinglj^, — 

"  And  you  will  let  baby  come  back  ?  " 

"Certainly,  the  moment  you  give  me  reason  to  feel  sure  you 
will  continue  to  be  good," 

"  I  am  good  now," 

"For  how  long  ?" 

"Until  I  am  provoked  again." 

"  That  won't  do.  TKe  child  shall  stay  away  altogether,  rather 
than  grow  up  to  have  its  character  ruined  by  witnessing  an  evil 
example  set  it  by  its  mother." 

"  You  will  not  rob  my  child  of  its  mother ! "  she  exclaimed 
wildly. 

"  On  the  contrary.     I  wish  to  save  you  to  your  child." 

"Are  my  promises  nothing?"  she  inquired. 

"  You  are  as  well  able  to  judge  of  that  as  I  am.  How  have 
j^ou  kept  them  hitherto?  " 

She  hung  her  head,  conscious  that  she  had  used  words  as 
counters,  to  be  put  aside  as  worthless  as  soon  as  her  game  wa§ 
played. 


324  J5F  AND  BY. 

"  I  shan't  know  wliat  to  do  all  day  without  my  baby,"  she 
murmured. 

''Yes,  we  sluill  miss  it  dreadfullj',"  lie  remarked. 

"  You  won't  care,"  returned  Nannie. 

"Well,  not  so  much  as  yuu,  because  I  can  go  and  see  it  oc- 
casionally." 

"  So  can  I,"  said  Nannie,  "  I  shall  go  now." 

"  That  is  quite  out  of  the  question." 

"  Why  ?  " 

"  Because  I  have  given  orders  to  the  contrary." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Nannie,  I  had  a  most  terrible  shock  one  day,  not  long  ago. 
I  overheard,  when  out  walking,  some  people  talking  about  us. 
One  said  to  the  other,  '  How  is  it  one  sees  Mr.  Carol  about  so 
little  now  ?  '  I  dread  to  tell  you  the  answer  ;"  but  it  may  do 
you  good  to  know  the  impression  you  have  produced  in  the 
neighborhood." 

"I  am  not  afraid,  what  was  it?  " 

" '  Oh,  poor  fellow,  he  is  afraid  to  leave  his  mad  wife.' " 

"I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it,"  said  Nannie.  "It  is  nothing 
but  a  story  you  have  made  up  to  excuse  yourself  for  going  about 
without  me." 

"  So  far  from  that  being  the  case,  it  is  the  greatest  disai> 
pointment  to  me  to  find  you  object  so  to  every  thing  I  have  to 
do,  and  every  person  I  have  to  see,  that  I  am  comi^elled  to  leave 
you  at  home.  But  where  do  you  imagine  that  I  want  to  go 
without  you  ?  " 

"  I  know." 

"  Will  you  not  enlighten  me  ?  Of  course,  I  should  not  have 
told  you  of  that  conversation  if  I  considered  you  mad." 

"  It  is  no  matter  what  you  consider  me.  You  like  the  society 
of  other  people.     That  is  enough  for  me." 

"But  not  in  the  same  way  that  I  like  your  society.  Life  has 
many  kinds  of  pleasures  and  engrossments,  besides  love  ;  which, 
by  operating  as  distractions,  serve  to  perpetuate  and  intensify 
love.  Foremost  among  them  are  the  charities  and  amenities  of 
social  intercourse,  friendship,  and  intellectual  converse.     I  take 


BY  AND  BT.  325 

as  mucli  delight  in  tliese  as  ever ;  but  I  have  withdrawn  from 
them  all,  in  the  interests  of  your  happiness." 

"And  quite  right  too.  It  only  makes  you  despise  me  for  my 
ignorance  when  you  go  among  what  you  call  intellectual  people. 
As  for  friends,  I  don't  see  what  you  want  with  them,  when  you 
have  got  a  wife." 

"Nannie,  I  expected  to  find  you  untaught;  but  I  did  not 
expect  to  find  you  unteachable." 

"  Then  you  are  disappointed  in  me  ?  " 

"It  is  in  your  power  to  prevent  my  being  so." 

"If  you  loved  me  as  you  ought,  you  would  think  me  perfect. 
But  you  can't,  when  you  are  always  thinking  of  some  other — 
some  intellectual — woman."  (She  uttered  the  word  with  a 
sneering  emphasis.)  "  Oh,  you  need  not  deny  it.  You  won't 
convince  me.  I  know  it  is  true,  because  I  dreamt  it !  Don't 
laugh  at  me !  I  won't  be  laughed  at  by  you,  oh,  you  cruel, 
cruel  man ! "  she  added,  on  seeing  the  smile  evoked  by  her  last 
speech. 

"  AVhy,  Nannie,,  it  is  the  greatest  compliment  one  can  pay  to 
a  comedian  when  he  has  uttered  a  good  thing  well,  to  laugh 
heartily.  I  shall  make  a  note  of  that,  'I  knoiv  it  is  true,  be- 
cause I  dreamt  it,'  and  get  some  dramatic  friend  to  put  it  into 
a  play.  An  actress  who  can  say  it  exactly  as  you  did,  will  be 
sure  to  bring  the  house  down.  But  I  really  must  bring  this 
conversation  to  an  end  for  the  present,  as  I  must  go  and  see 
how  poor  Bertie  is." 

"  Bertie  !  what  is  the  matter  with  him  ?  " 

"He  was  taken  very  ill  in  the  night,  and  had  to  send  for  a 
doctor." 

"  Why  don't  you  telegraph  instead  of  going  ?  " 

"  You  have  put  it  out  of  my  power." 

"How?" 

"  I  had  already  been  conversing  with  him  about  himself  by 
telegraph.  It  was  the  sounding  of  his  signal  that  excited  you 
to  destroy  the  apparatus.  By  my  not  replying,  he  will  be 
thinking  tliat  I  have  gone  out,  probably  to  see  him." 

"  Is  this  true  ?  "  she  exclaimed. 


326  Jiy  AND  nr. 

"I  know  you  have  never  understood  my  character,"  he  re- 
plied ;  "  but  I  did  not  think  yon  had  so  utterly  misunderstood 
it  as  to  suppose  me  capable  of  falsehood." 

"I  know  what  I  know,"  she  said,  with  a  menacinj^;  air  that 
was  anything  but  reassuring  to  Criss.  And  then  with  a  aud'.h-n 
change  of  demeanor,  added,  "But  Criss  dear,  I  must  go  a)id 
nurse  dear  Bei'tie.  I  can  be  such  a  good  nurse.  You  will  be 
so  proud  of  your  little  wife  when  you  see  her  in  a  sick  room. 
"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  at  once,  and  then  all  this  trouble 
would  have  been  saved  ?  " 

"  I  was  about  to  tell  you  when  it  occurred,  in  the  hope  that 
you  would  make  the  proposal  you  have  just  made." 

"Well  then,  come  quick,  and  let  us  go  to  him  at  once.  Shall 
I  ring  for  the  carriage  ?  " 

"I  will  do  that,  while  you  are  putting  something  on,"  replied 
Criss,  utterly  at  a  loss  to  find  the  key-note  to  a  character  that 
seemed  determined  to  baffle  him.  He  could  liken  Nannie  only 
to  a  musical  instrument,  that  is  perfect  in  all  respects,  save  for 
one  note  which  obstinately  refuses  to  be  tuned  into  harmony, 
but  so  jars  whenever  and  however  it  is  touched,  as  to  produce 
the  most  frightful  discord.  Only  in  aSTannie's  case,  unhappily, 
the  false  note  seemed  to  have  the  faculty  of  spontaneous  utter- 
ance, so  tliat  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  being  tortured  by  it. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


Bertie's  illness  was  sharp,  but  by  the  evening  the  symptoms 
were  so  much  alleviated,  that  there  was  no  excuse  for  Criss  and 
Nannie  to  remain  with  him  through  the  night.  In  her  conduct 
in  the  sick  room,  Nannie  had  shown  a  tact  and  readiness  which 
delighted  Criss  ;  and  on  their  way  home  he  spoke  in  such  a  way 
as  to  show  lier  that  he  was  pleased,  but  without  implying  that 
he  was  surprised.  Nannie's  demeanor  during  the  drive  each 
way,  caused  him  some  pefplexity.     On  the  way  to  Bertie's  her 


BY  AND  BY.  327 

lips  were  set,  as  if  under  the  influence  of  alarm  and  apprehen- 
sion. On  her  return  she  spoke  only  in  monosyllables,  as  if  his 
remarks  interrupted  a  train  of  thoughts  altogether  unconnected 
with  their  recent  experience.  On  reaching  home  she  ran  into 
the  house  without  a  word,  and  hurried  upstairs,  evidently  long- 
■ing  to  indulge  her  feelings  by  herself. 

Anxiously  watching,  Criss  heard  a  scream,  which,  however, 
did  not  sound  to  him  like  one  of  distress.  In  another  moment 
Nannie  had  run  down  to  him,  with  the  baby  in  her  arms,  ex- 
claiming triumphantly, — 

"  I  have  got  her  back  !     I  have  got  her  back !  " 
"  Yes,   so  I  see.     Can  you  explain   it  ?  "  he  asked  with   a 
smile. 

"No,"  she  said,  and  her  face  fell,  as  if  feeling  less  sure  that 
she  had  cause  for  exultation. 

"Bring  baby  into  the  study,  and  I  will  tell  you." 
"No,  no,  not  in  that  room,  I  can't  go  in  there.     In  here." 
"Nannie,  darling,  I  was  so  pleased  by  your  readiness  to  go 
and  nurse  Bertie,  that  I  sent  for  the  child  back  to  meet  you  on 
your  return,  as  a  reward." 

For  a  moment  Nannie  looked  as  if  she  was  on  the  point  of 
bursting  into  tears.  Then,  with  a  manifest  effort,  she  restrained 
them,  and  after  two  or  three  fluctuations  of  resolve,  said,  as  if 
to  herself, — 

"  No,  I  won't.  I  won't  be  so  weak.  He  shan't  think  he  has 
conquered  me.  Criss,  you  were  taken  in.  It  wasn't  goodness 
a  bit  that  made  me  want  to  go  to  Bertie.  I  didn't  believe  your 
story  about  his  being  ill.  I  thought  it  was  an  excuse  to  go  and 
see  some  woman.  I  determined  to  outwit  you  by  going  with 
you.  And  now  I  have  got  my  child  back,  without  being  good." 
And  she  laughed  a  wild  hysterical  laugh. 

"  Well,  Nannie,"  he  said  soothingly,  "  now  that  you  see  for 
yourself  how  groundless  your  fancies  are,  I  hope  we  shall  have 
an  easy  time  of  it  for  the  future." 

But  Nannie  had  made  up  her  mind  not  to  come  round  just 
yet.  So  she  busied  herself  about  the  child,  tossing  and  singing 
to  it,  and  took  no  notice  of  his  remarks. 


328  -  BY  AND    BY. 

Before  he  could  speak  again,  tlie  telegraph  signal  in  the 
adjoining  room  uttered  its  alarum.  On  hearing  it,  Nannie 
turned  very  red,  and  the  more  so  because  she  felt  that  Criss 
saw  the  change  in  her  color.  With  a  faltering  voice  she 
said, — 

"  I  thought  it  was  broken." 

"It  has  been  repaired  in  our  absence,"  said  Criss.  "There 
are  too  many  poor  fellows  depending  for  their  bread  on  my 
punctuality,  for  that  to  be  left  broken." 

And  he  went  to  see  what  messages  had  arrived  while  he  was 
out,  leaving  Nannie  wath  the  child  to  recover  at  leisure. 

Before  retiring  for  the  night,  Nannie  sat  beside  Criss  on  a 
sofa,  her  equanimity  perfectly  restored. 

"  I  wish,"  she  said,  as  she  played  with  his  hand,  twisting  her 
lovely  hair  around  it,  "  I  wish  you  did  not  expect  me  to  be  so 
good.  I  am  sure  I  should  be  better,  if  I  wasn't  expected  to  be 
so.  It  wouldn't  make  you  bad,  being  expected  to  be  bad ;  why 
then  should  I  be  made  good  by  being  expected  ?  " 

"Perhaps  it  would  help  you  to  be  good  if  I  were  to  break  out 
occasionally  into  a  lit  like  one  of  yours." 

"Oh  yes,  that  it  would.     Do  !  do  do  it !" 

"Well,  it  did  occur  to  me  to-day  that  it  was  a  good  opportu- 
nity to  follow  the  example  of  a  person  I  once  heard  of,  who 
went  to  take  charge  of  a  lunatic.  The  patient  was  subject  to 
attacks  of  violence,  in  which  he  would  fling  about  the  room  and 
smash  whatever  was  handy  to  him.  Well,  the  first  time  he  did 
this  before  his  new  keeper,  who  was  a  woman  of  great  nerve 
and  resolution,  she  at  once  seized  sundry  articles  of  furniture, 
and  dashed  tliem  to  the  ground,  with  precisely  the  same  out- 
cries and  gesticulations  which  he  had  used." 

Nannie  laughed  gleefully.  "  Oh,  how  I  should  like  to  have 
seen  that !  "  she  cried.     "  But  what  did  he  do  then  ?  " 

"  He  gazed  at  her  in  astonishment,  and  at  length  asked  her 
what  she  did  that  for.  She  replied  that,  seeing  him  do  it,  she 
supposed  it  was  the  way  of  the  place,  and  the  right  thing  for  her 
to  do.  The  story  goes  that  he  thereupon  looked  exceedingly 
foolish,  and  never  after  broke  out  so  again." 


BY   AND  BY.  329 

"  And  why  didn't  you  smash  the  things  in  your  study  this 
morning,  too,  if  you  thought  it  might  cure  me?" 

"  I  believe  my  principal  reason  was  that  it  was  my  study. 
Had  it  been  one  of  your  rooms  now,  with  all  your  pretty  things 
about  it,  I  probably  should  have  done  a  little  smashing." 

After  a  pause  she  said, — 

"I  am  thinking,  Criss  dear,  that  you  ought  never  to  have 
married  at  all." 

"  Well,  Nannie,  we  live  and  learn." 

"  I  mean  that  you  are  too  perfect  by  half  in  yourself.  No 
woman  can  put  up  with  absolute  goodness.  There  is  not  suffi- 
cient of  the  machine  about  us.  Our  feelings  can't  stand  it. 
They  will  have  relaxation.  It  is  as  bad  for  us  to  live  with  a 
person  who  is  perfect,  as  for  a  child  to  live  only  with  grown  up 
folks.  I  should  be  sorry  if  little  Zoe  has  no  one  beside  you 
and  me  to  play  with.  We  shall  be  quite  old  then,  and  she 
will  want  the  companionship  of  other  children.  They  learn  so 
much  from  each  other  that  all  the  schools  and  grown  up  people 
in  the  world  can't  teach  them.  She  is  almost  six  months  old 
now.  She  will  be  so  dull  without  any  brother  or  sister  for  a 
companion."  And  the  sad  prospect  wrung  a  little  sob  from 
Nannie's  affectionate  heart. 

Her  melancholy  forebodings  were  happily  doomed  to  disap- 
pointment. Zoe  was  scarcely  eighteen  months  old  when  the 
desired  playfellow  made  its  appearance  in  the  ,form  of  a  little 
boy. 


«  »■»  > 


CHAPTER  X. 

Thanks  to  a  careful  selection  of  agents  and  organization 
of  work,  the  gigantic  oj^erations  which  Criss  was  carrying  on 
in  the  desert,  proceeded  rapidly  and  steadily  withoiit  requiring 
more  than  an  occasional  brief  visit  from  him.     In  the  same 


330  BY  AND  BY. 

way,  the  work  of  freeing  thought  throughout  Soudan  from  the 
chains  of  superstition,  made  progress  in  spite  of  the  vested 
interests.  Wlien  the  Emperor  had  come  thoroughly  to  com- 
prehend the  real  significance  of  the  claim  set  up  by  the  priest- 
hood to  he  superior  to  the  civil  government,  ho  had  given  his 
countenance  to  the  societies  which  Criss  had  created  for  the 
spread  of  popular  enlightenment.  The  battle  was  virtually 
won  when  once  the  people  comprehended  that,  whatever  the 
object  of  enquiry,  there  is  but  one  method — the  scientific ;  inas- 
much as  it  signifies  merely  accuracy  both  in  observation  of  facts 
and  deduction  of  inferences ;  so  that  to  reject  the  scientific  for 
any  other  method,  is  simply  to  reject  accuracy  for  inaccuracy. 
It  was  thus  that  the  fictions  of  so-called  history,  and  the 
inventions  of  superstition  gradually  lost  all  importance  in  their 
eyes,  and  became  but  as  certain  fossil  specimens  to  the  geolo- 
gist, tokens  of  a  lower  stage  in  the  earth's  development.  Stu- 
dents and  curiosity-mongers  may  concern  themselves  about 
such  things,  but  they  enter  not  into  the  lives  of  those  who 
judge  all  matters  by  the  criterion  of  the  present. 

Talking  over  these  things  one  day,  the  Emperor  expressed 
to  Criss  his  surprise  that  with  all  his  zeal  for  the  enlightenment 
of  the  i)eople,  he  had  not  attacked  the  divinity  of  the  Sacred 
Talisman.  "  Surely,"  said  the  young  monarch,  "  if  I  am  to  be 
a  reforming  king,  and,  to  use  your  own  phrase,  'of  a  piece 
throughout,'  I  ought  openly  to  discard  a  superstitious  basis  for 
the  crown  which  now  affects  to  justify  its  existence  by  Use." 

Criss  acknowledged  that  he  had  thought  much  on  this  very 
point,  and  believing  that  the  symptoms  would  disappear  as  the 
disease  was  cured,  had  judged  it  best  to  commence  at  the  other 
end.  "Let  us,"  he  said,  "be  content  with  gradually  developing 
the  intelligence  of  the  jjeople,  and  they  will  of  themselves  then 
successively  shed  one  superstition  after  another.  Knowledge 
is  the  sole  proper  disturber  of  faith.  No  use  to  extinguish  the 
candle  before  letting  in  the  sunshine.  When  once  they  have 
knowledge,  they  will  perceive  of  their  own  accord  that  the 
Sacred  Talisman  derives  all  its  real  value  from  its  intrinsic  worth 


BY  AND  BY.  331 

and  beauty,  and  that  any  mystic  addition  serves  to  diminish 
rather  than  enhance  its  lustre." 

It  was  thus  that  the  spirit  of  Emancipated  Europe  crossed 
the  Sahara  into  Soudan,  and  conquered  the  chief,  if  not  the 
last  stronghold  of  superstition  remaining  in  the  world.  The 
people  and  their  sovereign  understood  each  other  and  the  unity 
of  their  interests,  and  thenceforth  all  opposition  was  vain.  The 
national  school,  national  universities,  and  national  church  of 
Soudan,  became  the  three  steps  in  the  ladder  of  the  national 
development;  the  appeal  in  all  being  to  man's  present  and 
mature,  instead  of  to  his  past  and  rudimentary.  Thus,  too,  did 
Europe  repay  to  Africa  the  debt  owed  for  Africa's  contribution 
to  the  early  civilization  of  the  world  ;  and  the  greater  debt 
owed  for  the  world's  after  treatment  of  Africa.  Once  a  slave- 
hunting  ground  for  all  men,  Africa  was  now  free  in  mind  as 
■svell  as  in  body,  and  its  very  soil  was  being  redeemed  as  from 
an  hereditary  curse. 

If  ever  the  earth  had  been,  as  theologians  were  wont  to 
declare,  morally  insolvent,  and  capable  of  rehabilitation  only  by 
a  vast  act  of  grace,  it  was  now  proving,  by  its  conduct  in  Africa, 
that  it  had  only  suspended  payment,  not  become  utterly  bank- 
rupt ;  that,  give  it  time,  and  it  would  pay  all. 

This  last  was  a  train  of  thought  which  had  been  communi- 
cated to  Criss's  mind  during  one  of  those  flights  into  the  Em- 
pyrean which  had  made  the  chief  delight  of  his  life  as  a 
bachelor.  It  is  only  because  man  is  impatient  with  God's  slow 
method  of  working,  that  he  denounces  Nature  as  a  bankrupt, 
who  has  failed  to  fulfil  his  proper  engagements  to  the  great 
Creditor,  and  thus  fallen  short  of  the  end  of  his  being.  We, 
who  can  contemplate  such  lives  as  some  which  have  sprung 
from  the  earth — yea,  even  such  a  life  as  this  I  am  now  too  im- 
perfectly narrating — may  well  hold  that,  were  there  no  other  like 
it,  no  other  approaching  it  for  purity,  goodness,  and  usefulness, 
one  such  life  is  sufficient  to  redeem  the  earth  from  the  charge 
of  being  utterly  reprobate  and  fallen^  from  the  condemnation  of 


032  BY  AND  BY. 

having  existed  in  vain,  and.  incurred  a  sentence  of  wrath  for 
having  failed  to  fulfil  the  end  of  its  being  ;  sufficient,  therefore, 
to  reconcile  its  Maker  to  it : — just  as  one  magnificent  blossom 
suffices  to  redeem  the  plant  that  lives  a  hundred  years,  and 
flowers  but  once,  from  the  charge  of  having  wasted  its  exist- 
ence. Even  if  the  experience  of  all  past  ages  of  apparent  aim- 
lessness  and  sterility  afford  no  plea  in  justification  of  existence, 
the  one  fact,  that  there  is  room  for  hope  in  the  future,  may  well 
suffice  to  avert  the  sentence  men  are  too  apt  to  pronounce, — 
that  all  is  vanity  and  vexation,  and  that  the  tree  of  Humanity 
is  fit  only  to  be  cut  down,  that  it  cumber  the  ground  no 
longer. 

With  the  intellectual  emancipation  of  Soudan,  the  need  of 
social  regeneration  became  apparent.  Here,  however,  Criss 
found  less  readiness  to  follow  an  European  lead  than  in  other 
respects.  Neither  the  women  were  eager  to  demand,  nor  the 
men  ready  to  concede  a  change  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes, 
little  content  though  they  both  were  with  the  existing  state  of 
things.  A  little  enquiry  showed  him  that  they  had  never  yet 
learnt  to  see  the  essential  distinction  between  social  and  politi- 
cal equality.  The  women,  too,  had  been  taught,  by  a  com- 
paratively recent  event  in  a  neighboring  State,  to  see  the 
absurdity  of  their  claiming  to  be  legislators  at  all,  when  they 
could  be  so  only  ujDon  sufferance,  and  must  at  all  times  be  in- 
capable of  enforcing  their  decrees.  And  the  men  had  taken 
advantage  of  the  occurrence  to  laugh  to  scorn  all  demands  for  a 
change  which  seemed  to  involve  anything  ai^proaching  to  iden- 
tity of  function  in  public  more  than  in  domestic  life. 

The  occurrence  in  question  was  as  follows : — 

Several  generations  ago,  a  large  district  on  the  west  coast  of 
Africa  was  governed  by  a  succession  of  despotic  sovereigns, 
whose  sole  idea  of  religion  and  political  economy  was  to  appease 
the  gods,  and  keep  down  the  surplus  population,  by  the 
periodical  celebration  of  human  sacrifices  on  an  enormous  scale. 
For  a  long  time  the  victims  of  these  Kings  of  Dahomey  (an 
appellation   apparently  derived   from  the   Latin   da   Itomines, 


BY  AND  BY.  333 

"give  me  men,"  supposed  to  be  addressed  to  the  king  by  his 
god)  were  selected  by  the  merest  caprice.  But,  as  civilization 
extended  to  those  regions,  and  the  sentiments  of  men  there 
became  softened  by  the  study  of  philanthropy  and  art,  unmean- 
ing caprice  gave  place  to  a  system  of  natural  selection,  whereby 
all  the  crippled  and  imperfect  specimens  of  the  population  were 
periodically  chosen  to  be  offered  up.  The  effect  of  this  weeding 
out  of  the  inferior  types  was  to  produce  a  race  of  men  and 
women  as  superior  to  ordinary  folks  as  the  "  pedigree  "  cereals, 
for  which  the  hills  of  our  own  marine  southern  suburb  were 
once  so  famous,  were  superior  to  ordinary  produce.  The  men 
and  women  were  all  beautiful,  good,  and  clever ;  and  never  had 
been  known  such  handsome  negroes  and  negresses. 

But  as  man  improved,  the  gods  came  worse  off;  and  the 
priests  complained  that,  owing  to  there  being  no  imperfect 
specimens  left,  the  supply  of  victims  for  their  sacrifices  was 
running  short.  There  was  danger,  they  declared,  of  some  ter- 
rible judgment  befalling  the  nation,  through  the  neglect  of  the 
public  ordinances  of  religion. 

Upon  hearing  this  the  King,  after  holding  consultation  with 
the  priests,  determined  upon  making  a  new  ecclesiastical  canon. 
By  this  it  was  ordered  that  the  selections  for  sacrifice  should  be 
made  among  the  shortest  of  his  subjects,  male  and  female.  He 
trusted  thereby  both  to  satisfy  the  gods,  and  raise  the  average 
stature  of  his  peoj^le. 

The  people,  however,  after  the  first  sacrifice  or  two,  deter- 
mined no  longer  to  submit  to  such  a  state  of  things.  They 
were  wearied  of  the  exactions  of  the  priests,  and  disposed  to 
think  that  a  deity  who  could  derive  gratification  from  human 
sacrifices,  could  not  be  of  much  account  anyhow.  They  had 
also  imbibed  certain  revolutionary  notions  unfavorable  to  mon- 
archy. So  one  day  they  rose  in  a  mass,  abolished  the  dynasty, 
disendowed  the  church,  and  established  a  republic. 

So  high  was  the  standard  of  female  excellence,  that  there  was 
no  question  about  women  having,  under  the  new  regime,  an  equal 
share  of  political  power  with  men.  They  had  it  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  with  laudable  assiduity  did  they  apply  themselves  to 


334  BY  AND  BY. 

the  practice  of  parlimentary  and  forensic  eloquence.  So  earnest 
were  they  in  the  discharge  of  their  public  duties,  that  the  men 
gradually'  withdrew  from  public  life  altogether,  as  a  thing  best 
adapted  to  women,  and  occupied  themselves  with  ordinary 
affairs  in  the  field,  the  factory,  the  market,  and  the  home  ;  until 
every  public  office  was  held  by  women,  even  the  police  and  the 
army  consisting  exclusively  of  that  sex. 

Things  went  along  smoothly  and  well  until  certain  states- 
women  of  Dahomey,  smitten  by  propagandist  zeal,  endeavored 
to  undermine  the  institutions  of  their  neighbors,  on  the  ground 
of  their  unwomanly  character.  The  Emperor  of  Soudan,  whose 
dominions  reached  from  the  Red  Sea  to  the  N^iger,  had  long 
been  anxious  to  extend  his  rule  to  the  Atlantic  sea-board.  The 
main  obstacle  to  his  ambition  was  the  prosperous  and  easy- 
going community  of  Dahomey.  The  intrigues  of  its  states- 
women  among  his  o\\'n  people  supplied  him  with  a  pretext  for 
invading  it ;  Mliile  the  knowledge  that  it  was  defended  only 
by  an  army  of  women,  made  it  seem  to  him  as  inviting  an 
attack.  He  determined  therefore  to  reduce  it  to  submission, 
and  compel  it  to  acknowledge  the  authority  which,  in  virtue  of 
his  well-known  descent  from  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba, 
he  claimed  over  all  the  adjacent  regions. 

On  the  approach  of  the  Imperial  army,  the  women  of  Daho- 
mey prepared  to  march  out  to  battle.  The  men,  concerned  at 
the  idea  of  danger  to  their  women,  offered  to  go  in  their 
places,  saying  that  whatever  legislation  and  police  might  be, 
fighting  a  foreign  foe  who  was  really  in  earnest,  was  a  serious 
matter. 

But  the  women  scornfully  rejected  their  proffered  aid,  bade 
them  stay  at  home  and  look  after  their  children  and  business, 
and  then  marched  boldly  forth  to  meet  the  enemy. 

No  sooner  had  they  departed  than  the  men  met  in  council. 
They  knew  how  it  would  be,  and  that  no  time  must  be  lost.  It 
was  necessar}',  however,  that  their  w^omen  should  receive  a 
lesson.  A  battle,  and  therefore  a  reverse,  could  not  take  place 
for  a  day  or  two.  So,  having  armed  and  formed  themselves 
into  divisions,  they  started  after  it  was  dark  to  occupy  the  hills 


BY  AND  BY.  335 

which  overlooked  the  plain  where  the  battle  was  expected  to 
take  place,  keeping  their  movements  absolutely  secret  from  the 
army  of  women. 

On  the  enemy  coming  in  sight,  the  vt^omen  with  much  show 
of  determination,  and  really  making  a  most  gallant  appearance, 
advanced  to  meet  him.  The  combat  was  short  and  sanguinary, 
that  is,  to  one  side,  the  side  of  the  unhappy  Dahomey  damsels. 
Tlieir  courage,  unsupported  by  strength,  proved  to  be  vain. 
The  Imperial  levies,  though  consisting  of  a  race  far  inferior  in 
physique,  were  yet  men.  Thej^,  therefore,  could  riot,  under  any 
circumstances,  suffer  themselves  to  be  defeated  by  women ; 
while  the  women  felt,  though  they  did  not  own  it  until  after- 
wards, already  half  beaten  through  the  influence  of  their  own 
hereditarily-acquired  impressions  of  man's  prowess.  They  were 
soon  in  full  flight  over  the  plain  ;  and  as  they  fled,  the  visions 
of  their  homes,  containing  their  children  and  the  husbands 
they  had  left  to  tend  them,  rose  before  them ;  and  with  the 
army  beaten  and  the  enemy  advancing,  they  saw  nothing  but 
ruin  and  slavery  for  all  they  loved,  or  ought  to  love. 

The  unhappy  fugitives  were  not  suffered  long  to  indulge 
these  bitter  reflections.  The  sounds  of  battle  were  renewed. 
The  tramp  of  a  host  came  near.  Whither  now  shall  they  flee  ? 
Home !  How  can  they  face  their  homes,  thus  humiliated  after 
all  their  vauntings  ? 

"  What  is  this  ?  No  enemy  !  but  our  own — dear — men  ! ! 
Oh,  save  us  !  save  and  forgive  ! " 

"  All  right,  all  right,  lassies  " — (they  had  a  few  Scotch  words 
in  their  vernacular.  Many  of  them  were  literally  "Bonny 
lassies,"  for  they  belonged  to  the  province  of  Bonny,  a  little  to 
the  eastvA'iird  of  their  great  river ;  and  were  not  the  Camaroon 
mountains,  towering  thirteen  thousand  feet  high,  almost  in 
sight,  a  name  palpably  of  Scotch  origin?) — "all  right,  lassies," 
exclaimed  thousands  of  manly  voices,  as  thousands  of  muscular 
arms  wore  clasped  round  thousands  of  delicate  ebony  necks. 
"  We  knew  how  it  would  be,  and  took  precautions  accordingl3^ 
You  would  go ;  but  we  determined  you  should  not  be  beaten 
too  badly.     So  we  placed  ourselves  where   we   could  see   the ' 


336  BY  AND  BY. 

battle,  and  directly  you  ran  away  and  the  enemy  gave  chase, 
we  pounced  upon  him  and  cut  him  to  pieces.  So  now  you  can 
come  home,  and  resume  your  functions  legislative  and  pro- 
tective, without  fear  of  further  molestation." 

The  women  were  glad  enough  to  go  home,  but  from  that  day 
forward  they  steadily  declined  to  undertake  functions  which, 
through  lack  of  physical  strength,  they  could  only  fulfil  by 
sufferance.  It  was  the  remembrance  of  this  incident  that 
mainly  operated  to  retard  the  introduction  of  the  European 
system  into  Central  Africa.  America,  too,  had  contributed  an 
example  in  dissuasion.  For  the  women  of  the  province  of  New 
England,  in  an  access  of  religious  fervor,  had  taken  advantage 
of  their  being  in  a  majority  at  the  polls,  to  create  a  Popedom 
of  Boston,  and  elected  one  of  their  own  sex  to  the  office,  and 
in  virtue  of  the  ancient  and  intellectual  supremacy  of  their 
city,  claimed  for  her  spiritual  supremacy  over  the  whole  conti- 
nent. It  was  only  by  taking  possession  of  the  polls  by  force 
and  reversing  the  decree,  that  the  men  put  an  end  to  the 
absurdity.  Thenceforth  they  have  restricted  the  suffrage  to 
themselves. 

Thus,  in  addition  to  Criss's  other  labors  on  behalf  of  his 
African  proteges,  he  undertook  to  make  them  comprehend  the 
natural  law  which  seems  to  assign  to  men  a  monopoly  of  the 
sphere  of  politics  and  legislation,  and  to  restrict  women  to  the 
social  and  industrial  sphere ;  inasmuch  as  the  former  is  based 
on  force,  and  the  latter  on  convenience, — a  difference  of  func- 
tion for  which  nature,  and  not  man,  is  responsible. 


<  »■»  > 


CHAPTEE   XL 

SixcE  his  marriage,  Criss  had  held  no  intercourse  with  his 
spiritual  friends.  The  tenor  of  his  life  was  inconsistent  with 
reverie.  His  mind  was  too  much  engrossed  by  his  labors  or  his 
troubles.     On  his  journeys,  which  were  made  with  the  utmost 


BY  AND  BY.  337 

rapidity,  he  had  things  concrete  to  occupy  liis  thoiTghts ;  and 
ascents  for  mere  abstract  contemplation  were  apt  to  excite 
Nannie's  jealousy.  She  was  jealous  even  of  the  angels,  and 
without  waiting  for  cause  given,  was  ever  ready  to  utter  the 
imperious  prohibition,  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  goddess  but 
me." 

Hovering  one  day  in  the  Ariel  over  his  garden,  Criss  could  see 
as  he  gazed  downwards,  the  smooth  green  sward  and  embower- 
ing trees,  and  the  fair  dwelling,  and  Nannie,  the  embodiment 
of  all  his  dreams  of  loveliness,  and  Zoe,  the  fruit  of  his  love  for 
her ;  the  whole  forming  together  a  scene  of  exquisite  delight. 
But  the  joy  with  which  he  contemplated  it  was  instantly 
dashed  by  the  thought  of  the  serpent  which  had  thrown  its 
coils  around  it,  and  converted  what  should  be  his  home  of 
happiness  into  his  place  of  torture. 

Then  recurred  to  him  the  vision  of  his  friend  the  tall  ansrel, 
and  the  sweet  bride-angel,  Nannie's  prototype ;  and  he  won- 
dered whether  their  experiences  had  any  counterpart  in  his  ovvu ; 
and,  if  not,  in  what  consisted  the  secret  of  their  liappiness. 
And  as  he  thus  pondered,  by  a  scarcely  conscious  impulse  he 
drove  his  car  with  rapid  motion  far  up  into  his  old  ground,  the 
Empyrean.  "  Tell  me,  tell  me,"  his  heart  cried  as  he  ascended, 
"oh  ye  blessed  ones  of  the  skies,  what  is  the  secret  of  your 
bliss  ?  " 

It  was  not  long  before  his  yearning  evoked  a  rej)ly.  The  old 
ecstatic  condition  in  which  thought  became  transfused  into 
realities,  came  back  upon  him  with  undiminished  intensity, — • 
and,  presently,  to  his  spiritual  vision  became  revealed  the  well- 
remembered  noble  form  and  serene  countenance,  and  with  it 
the  sweet  and  sunny  face  of  the  fair  bride,  looking,  oh,  so  like 
Nannie,  but  Nannie  in  her  softest  moods,  that  Criss  could  not 
forbear  exclaiming, — 

"  Soul  of  my  Nannie  !  canst  thou  not  shed  upon  her  while  on 
earth  some  of  the  sweet  repose  and  confidence  which  thou  en- 
joy est  in  heaven  ?  Ye  look  on  me  with  the  same  joyous  aspect 
as  of  old.  Surely  ye  cannot  be  aware  of  the  sadness  which 
darkens  my  life  ?  " 
22 


338  -CF  ANB  BY. 

"We  know  all,"  replied  the  tall  angel,  "and  knowing  all,  we 
are  glad,  even  tlioiigh  thou  sorrowest.  Thy  struggles  and  thy 
patience  are  not  without  their  reward,  even  though  they  con- 
tinue to  the  end.  Know  that  the  task  before  thee  is  harder 
than  any  that  is  given  to  us.  This  is  thy  badge  of  honor.  It 
is  for  thee  to  prove  thyself  worthy  of  it.  Listen  to  the  revela- 
tion of  the  mystery.  Thou  and  she  are  products  of  the  same 
earth,  but  of  different  stages  in  that  earth's  development,  thou 
of  the  later  and  highest,  she  of  the  earlier  and  lowest.  The 
inherent  force  of  attraction  which  pervades  all  matter,  organic 
and  inorganic,  and  constitutes  love,  has  with  you  proceeded  to 
the  advanced  stage,  at  which  love  means  sympathy  and  self- 
devotion.  She  to  whom  you  are  wedded  is  still  in  that  primi- 
tive stage  in  which  attraction  is  mechanical  rather  than  moral, 
is  of  body  rather  than  of  soul — the  blind  attraction  of  otherwise 
inert  masses,  like  the  orbs  of  heaven  and  the  constituents  of 
the  earth — and  is  but  the  basis  of  love,  rather  than  the  love 
which  later  comes.  Only  continue  to  have  patience,  and  your 
influence  will  yet  pei-meate  the  system  which  has  hitherto  re- 
jected it.  The  love  that  is  not  self-love  ultimately  conquers  all 
things.  It  is  the  sole  universal  solvent.  It  may  be  in  time,  or 
it  may  be  in  eternity." 

"  The  hope  ma}"-  enable  me  to  endure  to  the  end,"  replied 
Criss ;  "  but  it  has  no  potency  to  charm  her  whom  I  love  and 
would  save.  Can  ye  not  give  me  aught  that  I  may  bear  back 
to  her  ?  Sweet  face !  loving  heart ! "  he  exclaimed,  addressing 
himself  to  the  bride-angel,  who,  he  now  observed,  carried  in 
her  arms  that  which  showed  him  that  she  too  had  become  a 
mother,  even  a  mother  of  angels ;  "  hast  thou  no  wonder-work- 
ing word  of  admonition  which  I  may  carr}^  back  with  me  ?  " 

Tlie  young  matron-angel  kissed  her  child,  and  then  bent  her 
head  over  against  that  of  her  spouse,  and  after  a  brief  confer- 
ence with  him,  said, — 

"It  is  permitted  me  to  impart  to  thee  the  secret  of  all  happi- 
ness, whether  in  heaven  or  elsewhere:  the  secret  that  would 
convert  even  the  dread  regions  of  the  lost  to  a  scene  of  bliss, 
had  those  regions  not  long  ago  been  for  ever  utterly  abolished. 


BY   AND  BY.  339 

Know,  then,  that  the  resolve,  persistently  maintained,  to  make 
the  best  of  that  which  we  have  and  are,  would  make  of  hell 
itself  a  heaven  ;  and  how  much  more  of  earth !  While,  ever  to 
make  the  worst  of  things  would  turn  heaven  itself  into  a  hell. 
The  mind  is  its  own  bliss  or  woe." 

"You  mean  that  I  have  failed  to  make  the  best  of  her?" 

"Nay,"  responded  the  other.  "The  application  was  meant 
for  her,  not. for  thee." 

Criss  shook  his  head  as  he  thought  of  the  uselessness  of  pre- 
senting such  a  rule  to  Nannie.  In  answer  to  his  look  appealing 
for  yet  further  guidance,  the  tall  Angel  took  him  aside,  and 
said, — 

"This  for  thine  own  ear,  for  few  are  equal  to  the  knowledge. 
]\rankind  and  ourselves  are  identical  in  essence.  It  is  the  stage 
and  conditions  which  differ.  We  have  no  superincumbent  mass 
of  plasm  through  which  to  struggle  to  our  soul's  development ; 
and  to  us  A'irtue  brings  but  little  reward,  its  practice  being  so 
easy.  With  men  it  is  not  so.  There  are  some  in  whom  the 
divine  spark  is  so  dim  and  chill,  that  their  smallest  deed  or 
thought  of  goodness  weighs  for  much  in  the  everlasting  balance. 
For  these  things  go  by  proportion.  It  is  not  to  lack  or  to  bad- 
ness of  heart  that  the  conduct  is  due  through  which  you  suffer, 
but  to  narrowness  of  vision, — a  narrowness  necessarily  inherent 
in  the  sex  whose  special  function  is  maternity.  If  her  mind 
be  too  tightly  girt  with  the  affections  which  centre  in  self  and 
in  offspring,  to  be  capable  of  enlargement  in  the  present,  re- 
member that  Nature  has  need  of  such  characteristics  to  ensure 
continuance,  and  that  hereafter  it  may  not  be  so.  Yet  one 
word  more.  With  us,  like  weds  only  with  like,  and  constituted 
as  we  are,  we  cannot  be  mistaken  in  our  mutual  estinvites,  any 
more  than  the  magnet  and  the  steel.  In  your  world  it  is  differ- 
ent. There  the  envelope  is  ofttimes  too  dense,  and  the  char- 
acter too  tardy  of  development,  for  the  effect  of  love  upon  the 
disposition  to  be  foreseen.  In  such  case,  to  court  the  irrevo- 
cable in  marriage  is  to  rush  presumptuously  upon  fate.  But,  as 
I  have  already  said,  the  defect  with  her  to  whom  you  fTave 
bound  yourself  is  intellectual,  not  moral.      Let  this,  and  the 


340  BY  AND  BY. 

certainty  that  you  are  loved  utterly,  with  such  love  as  she  is 
capable  of,  comfort  and  sustain  you.     Farewell," 

On  his  return  from  this  flight,  Criss's  countenance  shewed 
unwonted  serenity,  and  he  said  something  about  the  calm  airs 
aloft,  and  the  force  of  old  associations.  Nannie's  su.spiciousness 
at  once  took  fire,  for  she  had  not  failed  to  observe  his  altered 
look.  Remembering  his  old  habit  of  going  up  in  search  of 
spiritual  intercourse,  she  exclaimed, — 

"  You  have  been  among  those  angels  again  ?  Have  you?  I 
will  know  !  I  won't  have  you  leaving  me  for  creatures  who 
will  make  you  think  me  ugly  and  bad  by  comparison." 

"Why,  Nannie,  even  if  I  have  been  among  angels  up  there, 
surely  you  don't  want  to  make  me  feel  that  I  am  not  with  au 
angel  when  down  here?  You  can  be  one  when  you  like.  You 
can't  help  having  the  look  of  one.    Why  not  act  like  one,  also  ?" 

"  Time  enough  when  I  get  up  there,  and  have  only  angels  to 
deal  with.     I  treat  people  as  I  find  them." 

"I  am  rejoiced  to  find  you  contemplating  such  amendment." 

''As  what?" 

"  As  will  suffer  your  admission  to  a  region  where  jealousy 
and  altercation  are  unknown," 

"Then  it  must  be  a  very  stupid  place,  and  I  don't  want  to  go 
to  it.  And  I  say  again,  that  if  you  will  persist  in  cultivating 
what  you  call  j^our  ideal,  you  can't  expect  ever  to  be  satisfied 
with  your  real,  which  is  me." 

Thus,  the  birth  of  their  second  child  was  heralded  by  a 
renewal  of  the  old  wretched  scenes,  and  it  required  all  the 
native  strength  and  hopefulness  of  Criss's  character  to  keep 
him  from  subsiding  into  a  condition  of  settled  despondency. 

"Here  is  a  surprise,  Nannie,"  he  said  to  her  one  morning 
after  opening  a  large  letter  bearing  the  official  seal  of  the  First 
Minister.  "You  won't  object  to  being  called  'My  Lady' in 
future  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she  asked. 

"It  is  through  no  seeking  of  mine,  you  may  be  sure,"  he 


BY  AND  BY.  341 

answered.  "  The  Government  has  appointed  me  to  a  seat  in 
the  Upper  House,  accompanying  the  notice  with  the  most 
flattering  letter."     And  he  handed  it  to  her  to  read  for  herself. 

It  contained  a  brief  but  warm  encomium  on  his  character  and 
life,  public  and  private,  and  an  expression  of  hope  that  he  would, 
by  accepting  the  proffered  dignity,  let  his  own  country  have  a 
yet  larger  share  of  the  Avide  enthusiasm  for  humanity  which 
had  inspired  his  magnificent  endeavors  for  the  regeneration  of 
the  continent  of  Africa. 

The  same  post  had  broiight  also  a  letter  from  Avenil,  con- 
gratulating Criss  on  the  event  to  which  he,  Avenil,  had  been 
privy,  and  saying  that  although  most  of  the  functions  of 
governing  were  now-a-days  practically  A'ested  in  Bureaux,  yet 
these  wanted  careful  supervision,  and  that  the  very  conscious- 
ness on  the  part  of  officials  that  intelligent  zeal  was  appreciated 
by  the  Legislative  Chambers,  served  to  secure  to  the  country 
the  benefits  of  good  administration.  Besides,  the  progress  of 
civilization,  so  far  from  abolishing  the  necessitj^  for  government, 
as  had  once  been  supposed  would  be  the  case,  was  ever  producing 
new  complications  and  needs. 

"  Are  there  women  in  it  ?  "  was  Nannie's  first  query. 

"  It  is  a  House  of  Lords,  not  of  Lords  and  Ladies,  I  assure 
Jon,"  returned  Criss. 

"Well,  I  don't  care,  it  is  all  a  plot  against  me,  to  take  you 
away."     And  she  lashed  herself  into  a  fury. 

Criss  thought  he  would  try  a  new  tack. 

"  Well,  Nannie,  I  won't  say  positively  that  it  is  not  so.  It 
is  very  likely  that  the  First  Minister  has  heard  of  me  as  a  poor 
fellow  trying  hard  to  do  his  duty  in  the  world,  but  so  plagued 
by  the  childish  fancies  of  a  foolish  jealous  little  wife,  as  to  be 
utterly  miserable  and  worn  out ;  and  that  it  has  occurred  to 
him  that  he  may  be  giving  me  some  relief  by  taking  me  a 
little  from  home,  to  breathe  the  serene  air  of  the  Legislature. 
He  is  a  very  good-natured  man,  this  First  Minister  of  ours,  I 
assure  you.  I  really  should  not  be  surprised  if  that  Avas  the 
explanation  of  it,  for  you  know  that  the  letter  is  mere  flattery, 


342  BY  AND  BY. 

and  that  I  have  never  justified  such  language  by  trying  to  be  a 
bit  of  use  in  the  world." 

"  I  hate  all  talk  about  use,  and  duty,  and  such  stuff.  A  man 
who  has  a  wife,  has  no  business  to  think  of  duty  elsewhere. 
What's  duty  to  love  !  " 

"Well,  Nannie,  I  am  truly  sorrj'  that  you  should  be  so  disap- 
pointed in  your  husband.  It  is  a  great  pity  we  did  not  clearly 
understand  at  first  what  your  requirements  would  be." 

"  You  will  say  next  that  you  are  disappointed  in  your  wife,  I 
suppose." 

"I  should  say  but  the  truth.  I  should  have  liked  a  Avife 
who,  on  finding  her  husband  so  appreciated  as  to  be  invested 
with  the  highest  honors  his  country  has  to  bestow,  would  be 
happy  with  all  the  joy  of  which  her  loving  heart  was  capable, 
and  by  the  sweetness  of  her  congratulations,  stimulate  him  to 
yet  greater  endeavors  to  adorn  his  life,  and  hers,  with  beautiful 
deeds." 

"Oh  yes,  you  are  always  hinting  that  you  wish  you  had 
married  some  other  woman.  But  you  have  married  mo,  and  I 
am  not  one  of  that  sort." 

"I  was  referring  to  no  woman  in  particular,  but  only  to  what 
any  woman  would  do  who  had  the  slightest  particle  of  a  heart, 
and  knew  what  love  meant." 

"  You  used  to  think  me  perfect." 

"  So  I  do  still,  as  regards  the  physical  and  outward  part  of 
your  nature," 

"  Well,  isn't  that  enough  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  it  only  makes  your  deficiency  in  all  other 
respects  the  more  palpable  and  hard  to  bear,  just  as  the  sight 
of  a  lovely  fiend  or  maniac  would  be  more  distressing  than  that 
of  one  whose  outward  appearance  corresponds  with  its  mental 
condition.  Oh,  Nannie !  Nannie ! "  he  cried,  with  a  burst  of 
uncontrolled  anguish,  such  as  he  had  never  before  permitted 
himself  to  indulge,  "Angel  still  in  form,  however  fallen  in 
spirit,  is  it  indeed  beyond  the  power  of  love,  human  or  divine, 
to  redeem  you  from  the  curse  that  enthrals  you?" 

" Fallen  1"  she  exclaimed,  "I  was  never  any  better  than  I 
am." 


BY  AND  BY.  343 

"True,"  he  replied;  "I  fashioned  my  speech  too  much 
according  to  the  ancient  traditions.  I  ought  to  have  said, 
'Nannie,  Avith  a  capacity  for  being  the  angel  you  look,  will  no 
treatment  develop  the  latent  soul  within  you  ?  '  Yet  in  one 
sense  my  first  phrase  was  right.  You  have  fallen  from  the 
high  pedestal  of  the  ideal  on  which  my  imagination  once  placed 
you." 

"Ah,  but  that  was  j^our  mistake,  for  placing  me  there." 

"  It  was  indeed,  and  bitterly  am  I  punished  for  that  one  error 
of  judgment." 

"What  answer  are  you  going  to  return  about  that  appoint- 
ment ?  " 

"  Are  you  desirous  of  advising  me  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  will  be  good,"  she  answered,  "  if  you  will  do  one  thing  to 
please  me.     Decline  the  Minister's  offer." 

Criss  went  into  his  study,  and  presently  returned  holding  out 
a  paper  to  her. 

"I  propose  to  send  something  of  this  kind,"  he  said.  ""V\liat 
do  you  think  of  it  ?  Isn't  that  a  very  good  pet  name  for  3'^ou 
in  future  ?  " 

She  read  the  rough  draft,  and  said, — 

"  So  I  am  the  '  Domestic  Affliction,'  and  you  accept  the  office 
with  the  intention  of  fulfilling  its  duties  so  far  as  your  'Domes- 
tic Affliction'  will  permit  ?  " 

"Yes,  dear — I  mean.  Domestic  Affliction,  such  is  my  de- 
sign." 

"  I  won't  be  laughed  at.  I  never  could  bear  being  laughed 
at." 

"  I  have  tried  crying  over  you,  in  vain.  I  must  laugh  now 
for  a  change.  It  is  a  change  I  sorely  need,  heaven  knows  ; " 
and  he  sighed  heavily.  "Nannie,"  he  said  suddenly,  as  a  new 
thought  struck  him,  "for  the  future  I  waste  no  more  words  of 
reproof  or  remonstrance  upon  you.  Wlienever  you  indulge  in 
one  of  the  tempers  with  which  you  love  so  to  distress  me,  I 
shall  not  utter  a  word,  but  only  laugh,  until  you  come  out  of 
your  evil  humor." 

He  had  some  time  since  made  it  a  rule  never  to  make  men- 


,314  BY  AND  BY. 

tion  to  her  of  any  person  or  object  of  any  kind  beside  herself. 
So  habitual  had  it  become  with  her  to  vent  ill-natured  remarks 
concerning  them,  whether  he  himself  showed  interest  in  them 
or  not.  "  Why  do  you  talk  to  me  about  them,  I  don't  care  to 
hear  about  other  folks.  You  seem  to  care  about  everybody  and 
everything  more  than  about  me."  The  moment,  however,  that 
she  observed  his  reticence,  she  charged  him  with  being  deceit- 
ful, and  having  concealments  from  her.  To  this  his  reply  had 
been, — 

"  Nannie,  it  ought  to  be  enough  for  you  to  abuse  me.  My 
friends  at  least  should  be  sacred ;  and  I  shall  do  what  I  can  to 
keep  them  so,  by  never  referring  to  one  of  them  in  your  pres- 
ence. ,  You  have  already  by  your  virulence  cut  off  almost  every 
possible  topic  of  conversation  between  us.  So  that  silence  is 
really  becomijig  my  sole  resource." 

This  time  she  looked  at  him  half-incredulous  and  half-fright- 
ened, and  said, — 

"  It  doesn't  distress  you  more  than  it  does  m3"self." 

"Prove  it  by  your  conduct  to  be  so,  then,"  he  replied,  ''or  I 
shall  think  that  you  take  a  pleasure  in  distressing  yourself,  as 
much  as  i'n  distressing  me." 

There  was  a  somewhat  longer  interval  than  usual  before  she 
again  broke  out.  Criss  ascribed  this,  partly  to  the  perplexity 
induced, by  the  novel  treatment  with  which  he  had  threatened 
her,  and  partly  to  the  alarm  she  could  not  conceal,  at  his  fre- 
quent absences  from  home  on  the  plea  of  attending  the  sittings 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  Nannie  had  taken  fright  lest  he  should 
therebj'-  become  in  a  measure  weaned  from  her.  What  would 
all  her  explosions  effect  when  met  by  the  triple  shield  of  ab- 
sence, silence,  and  laughter? 

One  day,  to  his  intense  surprise,  he  came  upon  her  kneeling 
beside  her  bed.  No  one  could  pray  for  aught  that  was  evil. 
To  wish  for  a  thing  that  was  good,  sufficiently  to  pray  for  it, 
was,  provided  it  was  a  thing  coming  within  range  of  the  spirit- 
ual laws,  surely  to  be  far  on  the  way  towards  its  achievement. 
The  soul  must  at  length  be  budding ! 

Filled  with  joy  and  hope,  Criss  endeavored  to  retreat  without 


BT   AND  BY.  345 

hearing  her  words,  for  she  was  praying  aloud.  But  she  uttered 
her  petition  with  too  much  vehemence  for  him  to  accomplish 
this  purpose.  It  was  a  petition  that  he  and  their  child,  or 
children,  might  die  before  her. 

Horror-struck,  he  rushed  towards  her,  exclaiming, — 

"Nannie,  Nannie,  what  is  the  meaning  of  such  a  prayer?" 

She  hesitated  and  looked  confused ;  hut  at  length  confessed 

that  she  had  prayed  thus  through  jealousy  lest  any  other  woman 

should  have  to  do  with   them  in  the  event  of  their  outliving 

herself. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


UisrABLE  to  make  any  way  by  means  of  angry  reproaches, 
owing  to  Criss's  persistence  in  a  policy  of  silence,  the  unhappy 
Nannie  at  length  conceived  the  idea  of  exhibiting  her  master 
passion  in  deeds.  Criss  came  home  one  day  to  find  her  alone 
in  the  house  with  her  child.  After  a  scene  in  which  she  had 
completely  lost  herself,  she  had  dismissed  the  entire  household 
at  a  moment's  notice,  on  the  plea  that  they  were  in  league  with 
their  master  against  her.  Her  equanimity  restored  by  the  per- 
formance of  this  feat,  she  went  to  the  garden  entrance,  and 
quietly  awaited  Criss's  return.  In  due  time  he  arrived,  doubt- 
ful of  the  humor  in  which  he  might  find  her,  and  was  overjoyed 
at  the  unwonted  sweetness  and  meekness  of  her  demeanor. 
Little  Zoe  was  with  her,  and  together  they  repaired  to  the 
house.  Criss  was  surprised  at  not  seeing  any  servant  in  wait- 
ing, and  was  about  to  ring  for  one,  but  Nannie  stopped  him, 
by  saying,— 

"  Is  there  anything  you  want,  Criss  dear  ?  I  will  get  it  for 
you." 

"  I  only  wanted  a  servant." 

"  Yes,  dear,  it  is  no  use  your  ringing.  There  is  no  one 
there." 


346  BY  AND  BY. 

"  How,  no  one  there  ?  " 

''They  provoked  me,  and  I  sent  them  away." 

"What,  all  of  them?" 

"  Yes,  every  one.  There  is  not  a  soul  in  the  house  besides 
ourselves." 

■ "  You  have  sent  all  my  servants  away !  And  for  what 
reason  ?  " 

"  They  were  my  servants,  too  ;  and  I  am  mistress  here !  " 

"  Let  me  hear  the  cause.  I  must  know  how  far  you  were 
justified." 

"Justified!  I  hope  I  may  dismiss  my  servants  when  I  choose, 
without  being  'justified.'" 

"  No ;  no  one  is  superior  to  justice.  I  must  know  all  the 
particulars." 

"  And  if  I  won't  give  them  ?  " 

"  I  shall  know  that  you  are  in  the  wrong,  and  send  for  them 
back  again." 

"You  will  outrage  your  wife  by  doing  that?  " 

"  Pardon  me ;  I  shall  be  repairing  an  outrage  done  by  my 
wife  upon  justice." 

"  The  idea  of  putting  justice  in  the  scale  against  your  wife  ! 
You  make  me  jealous  of  Justice.  You  make  me  hate  it  and 
all  the  other  stupid  virtues.  I  shall  be  jealous  of  the  servants, 
too,  if  you  take  their' part  against  me.  Justice,  indeed!  No, 
no.  Love,  that  is  love,  is  not  for  abstractions ;  it  is  only  for  a 
person,  and  does  not  think  of  goodness,  or  anything  but  that 
person." 

Criss  was  firm ;  and  finding  that  Nannie's  conduct  had  been 
absolutely  causeless,  reinstated  the  whole  of  his  household, 
apologizing  to  them  for  the  act  of  his  wife.  The  affection  and 
gratitude  they  exhibited  towards  him  did  not  by  any  means 
serve  to  appease  her ;  but  she  feared  to  repeat  the  act,  for  Criss 
declared  that  he  would  take  her  to  live  at  the  Triangle,  where 
the  servants  were  beyond  the  control  of  individual  caprice  ; 
and  she  hated  the  Triangle  because  he  had  so  many  friends 
in  it. 


BY  AND  BY.  347 

"Nannie,"  he  said  to  her  one  day,  when  this  storm  had 
passed  away,  "  I  want  yon  to  specify  to  me  the  causes  of 
your  discontent,  in  order  that  we  may  both  comprehend  clearly 
what  it  is  that  makes  us  so  miserable.  Of  covirse,  being  but 
mortals,  we  cannot  govern  all  things ;  and  you  are  not  so 
unreasonable  as  to  visit  upon  me  that  which  is  inevitable,  and 
beyond  man's  power  to  prevent.  Now,  I  beg  you  will  think 
over  and  enumerate  to  me  the  various  items,  great  and  small, 
in  respect  of  which  you  deem  your  lot  inferior  to  that  of  the 
most  fortunate  women  you  have  known.  If  you  don't  like  to 
speak  them,  write  them,  and  I  will  see  what  I  can  do  to  amend 
them.  Here's  a  sheet  of  paper.  Is  it  big  enough  to  contain 
the  list?  I  will  number  the  items,"  and  he  numbered  the  lines 
with  a  big  1,  2,  3. 

She  stopped  him  when  he  had  got  thus  far. 

"  You  write  it,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  now  for  number  1  ?  " 

"My  husband  makes  me  jealous." 

"  Very  good  ;  that  is  down.     Now  for  number  2  ?  " 

"You  don't  deny  it." 

"  That  part  comes  afterwards.  What  am  I  to  write  against 
number  2  ?  " 

"  The  same.  '  My  husband  makes  me  jealous.'  And  number 
3  also.     There,  now  you  know  all." 

"  Not  quite.  We  have  now  got  to  fill  wp  the  explanatory 
clauses.     How  does  he  make  you  jealous?" 

"  Oh,  if  you  don't  know  by  this  time,  I  am  not  going  to  take 
the  trouble  to  repeat  it." 

"  Nannie,  I  must  have  some  ver}''  serious  talk  with  you,  to 
which  I  insist  upon  your  listening.  It  is  the  way  of  all  rational 
beings  to  form  a  certain  plan  or  ideal  of  the  life  they  wish  to 
follow,  and  to  construct  such  ideal  according  to  their  own  consti- 
tution of  mind  and  body,  and  the  circumstances  by  which  they 
are  surrounded.  Having  constructed  such  ideal,  and  entered 
upon  the  practice  of  it,  they  follow  it  out  to  the  best  of  their 
ability,  amending  or  rejecting,  as  experience  may  dictate,  what- 
ever interferes  with  or  jars  upon  it.     Now,  tell  me,  have  you 


348  BT  AND  BY. 

formed  any  ideal  of  life,  in  the  pursuit  of  which  your  happiness 
consists,  and  from  which  you  endeavor  to  exclude  all  foreign  and 
intrusive  elements.  If  you  have,  I  should  be  most  grateful  to 
you  for  communicating  it  to  me.  Nothing  would  give  me 
greater  delight  than  to  help  you  to  maintain  the  ideal  on  wliich 
your  happiness  depends,  and,  if  necessary,  help  you  to  revise  it. 
Tell  me  your  scheme,  and  then,  if  you  please,  I  will  tell  you 
mine." 

Nannie  said  that  she  knew  nothing  whatever  about  ideals, 
and  had  no  scheme,  but  acted  only  from  impulse. 

"I  act  from  impulse,  too,"  replied  Criss,  "but  my  impulse 
prompts  me  to  form  and  act  up  to  a  certain  ideal.  Having  con- 
structed it  according  to  the  very  best  I  can  imagine,  by  aid  of 
all  the  lights  I  can  obtain,  that  ideal  becomes  to  me  as  God. 
This  God,  I  once  fondly  hoped  faithfully  to  follow  throughout 
the  whole  of  my  life,  my  path  at  the  same  time  being  gladden- 
ed by  the  tender  love  I  should  receive  from,  and  bestow  on  the 
sweet  partner  of  my  home.  This  God  I  am  resolved  to  follow 
to  the  end,  whether  I  be  blest  with  such  joy  or  not.  Should 
my  expected  joy  be  turned  into  misery,  my  rose  become  all 
thorn,  the  only  question  would  be,  not  should  I  abandon  my 
ideal,  but  should  I  give  up  that  which  causes  my  misery  ? 
Nannie,  in  obstructing  my  ideal  of  life,  you  are  seeking  to  with- 
draw me  from  God.  If  I  have  to  give  up  either,  you  know  me 
too  well  to  doubt  which  it  will  be.  Even  if  I  can  stand  the 
constant  wear  and  tear  of  heart,  brain,  and  spirit,  which  your 
conduct  causes  me,  my  desire  for  your  welfare  would  compel 
me  to  separate  you  altogether  from  one  in  whose  love  you  can- 
not be  happy." 

"  You  would  give  me  up !  Then  I  know  there  is  some  other 
woman " 

Utterly  sick  at  heart,  he  turned  away  to  leave  the  room,  ex- 
claiming,— 

"  Better  had  it  been  for  you,  cursed  with  such  a  nature,  had 
I  left  you  to  take  the  fatal  leap  from  the  burning  wreck  on 
which  I  found  you.  Nay,  better  even  to  have  left  you  to  be 
outraged  to  death  by  the  ruffians  on  Atlantika,  while  yet  young 


BY  AND  BY.  349 

and  innocent,  than  preserve  you  to  develop  into  that  which 
you  have  become.  Never  more  let  man  save  the  life  of  another, 
unless  he  is  sure  that  he  is  2iot  saving  it  for  a  worse  fate  !  I — 
I  have  saved  a  serpent  to  poison  my  own  life  ! " 

"  Criss  !  Criss,  dear  !  "  called  Nannie  after  him  j  "  don't  go, 
I  want  to  speak  to  you." 

He  returned,  looking  haggard  and  ill. 

"  Be  brief  and  careful,"  he  said  ;  "  my  patience  is  nearly  ex- 
hausted." 

"  I  only  wanted  to  tell  you  that  you  go  the  wrong  way  to 
work  with  me.  You  don't  understand  women — no  men  do — or 
you  wouldn't  make  such  a  fuss  about  us,  or  let  us  put  you  oiit 
so.  Because  you  mean  things  when  you  say  them,  you  think 
we  do  so  too.  Never  was  a  greater  mistake.  If  you  were  to 
take  no  notice  of  my — my — naughtiness,  I  shouldn't  care  to  be 
naughty.  But  it  attracts  your  attention  to  me,  and — I  like  to 
attract  your  attention." 

He  looked  somewhat  sternly  at  her,  and  then  said, — 

"  Nannie,  I  shall  take  you  at  your  word.  Only,  mind  this, — 
if  the  prescription  fails,  I  try  another." 

At  the  next  outbreak,  Nannie,  who  had  forgotten  the  new 
condition,  was  astounded  to  find  Criss,  instead  of  lamenting 
and  remonstrating  with  her,  taking  it  quite  coolly,  and  say- 
ing,— 

"  All  right,  Nannie  darling ;  fire  away  ;  I  won't  mind.  I 
dare  say  the  attack  will  soon  pass  off  if  you  give  it  free  vent. 
But  please  just  stop  a  moment,  and  compose  those  nice  lips  of 
yours  into  one  of  your  charming  pouts,  while  I  kiss  them.  It 
will  be  a  new  sensation  to  kiss  a  lovely  termagant  in  the  very 
midst  of  her  fury.  No  ?  Well,  if  I  musn't  reward  you  with  a 
kiss  for  the  capital  receipt  you  have  given  me,  I  will  just  go 
out  for  a  bit,  and  come  back  when  I  think  the  storm  is  quite 
over."     And  he  turned  to  quit  the  room. 

To  be  taken  at  her  word  was  the  last  thing  Nannie  intended. 
She  was  furious  at  the  indifference  he  had,  in  obedience  to  her, 
80  well  assumed.     Snatching  up  something  heavy  that  lay  at 


350  BY  AND  BY. 

liand — neither  she  nor  Criss  ever  knew  exactly  what  it  was — 
she  ruslied  towards  the  door  as  he  was  going,  and  while  his 
back  was  turned,  struck  him  with  all  her  might  on  the  head, 
exclaiming, — 

"There  !  that  will  teach  3-ou  to  outrage  a  woman's  feelings." 

So  heavy  was  the  blow  that  Criss  was  for  some  moments 
stunned.  Staggering  against  the  wall,  he  managed  to' support 
himself  there  until  power  and  consciousness  returned.  She 
meanwhile,  stood  watching  him,  apparently  without  having 
made  up  her  mind  as  to  the  next  step,  for  the  situation  was  a 
new  one,  and  she  had  no  experience  to  guide  her. 

On  recovering  from  the  first  shock,  Criss  took  his  wife  by  the 
wrist,  and  led  her  to  a  sofa.  He  did  this  gently,  but  firmly, 
and  she  made  no  resistance.  Seating  himself  there  beside  her, 
he  said, — 

"  Nannie,  a  prudent  doctor  always  informs  his  patient  of  the 
effect  likely  to  be  produced  by  any  new  medicine,  so  that  the 
patient  may  not  be  taken  imawares.  You  omitted  to  tell  me 
what  would  be  the  effect  of  my  following  your  prescription  of 
indifference  to  your  bad  conduct,  and  thus  have,  as  it  were, 
laid  a  trap  for  me.  But  now  that  I  know  so  much,  I  shall  be 
able  to  take  the  necessary  precautions.  There  is  one  point  in 
which  I  shall  imitate  the  doctor.  A  long  standing  complaint 
is  not  to  be  cured  by  a  single  dose.  I  shall  continue  the  treat- 
ment you  have  prescribed,  in  spite  of  its  having  seemingly 
aggravated  the  symptoms.  So,  if  you  like  to  let  me  have  the 
kiss  now,  which  you  refused  before,  please  adjust  those  charm- 
ing lips " 

But  Nannie  was  obdurate.     So  Criss  added, — 

"  Pray  don't  keep  me  waiting  for  it,  for  my  head  sadly  needs 
doctoring,  and  your  skill  in  surgery  does  not  include  the  repar- 
ative as  well  as  the  destructive  branches  of  the  art." 

"  Nonsense  !  call  yourself  a  man,  and  care  about  a  little  tap 
like  that!     I  didn't  think  you  were  a  coward  before." 

"  Ah,  Nannie,  even  we  men  have  our  weak  points.  Now 
that  you  have  found  mine  out,  I  hope  that  you  will  be  consider- 
ate of  it.     But  you  wouldn't  like  to  have  such  a  deformity  as  a 


I 


BY  AND  BY.  351 

two-headed  husband,  and  I  certainly  shall  look  as  if  I  had  two 
heads  if  something  is  not  done  soon  to  allay  the  swelling.  Just 
feel  it."     And  he  guided  her  hand,  unresisting,  to  the  wound. 

Nannie  had  always  had  a  morbid  horror  of  blood.  When  she 
withdrew  her  hand,  it  was  crimson  with  the  blood  with  which 
his  hair  was  saturated. 

Uttering  a  scream,  she  turned  away  and  buried  her  face  in 
a  cushion,  and  sobbed  bitterly. 

"  I  suppose  the  prescription  applies  to  all  outbreaks,  whether 
of  reproaches  or  tears,"  said  Criss,  rising ;  so  while  you  are  in- 
dulging yourself,  I  will  go  and  have  my  head  mended.  I  should 
like  to  have  had  that  kiss  first,  though." 

"You  will  find  me  dead  when  you  come  back,"  she  sobbed, 
scarce  lifting  her  face  from  its  hiding  place. 

"  Blissful  hope  !  "  cried  Criss,  gaily.  "  Don't  disappoint  it. 
Au  revoir ! " 

"  Poor  child,"  he  said  to  himself  after  leaving  her,  "  if  this 
does  not  cure  her,  the  case  must  be  hopeless.  And  what  is  to 
be  the  end  of  it !  " 

"  Doctor ! "  he  said  suddenly,  while  the  wound  was  being 
examined  in  the  doctor's  surgery,  for  on  second  thoughts  he 
had  gone  thither  instead  of  sending  for  the  doctor  to  come  to 
him, — "  Doctor,  what  is  to  be  the  end  of  it  ?  " 

"  Brain  fever  and  death." 

"  No,  no,  I  mean  for  my  wife,  if  she  refuses  to  abandon  her 
wild  fancies." 

"  I  was  speaking  of  her.  There  is  no  fear  for  yaur  brain. 
There  is  fear,  however,  of  serious  inflammation  of  the  injured 
tissues  ;  and  as  you  must  have  absolute  quietness,  I  intend  to 
keep  you  in  close  custody  here,  and  let  my  wife  nurse  you." 

Criss  looked  wistfully  at  the  doctor,  as  if  suspecting  he  meant 
more  than  he  said. 

"  I  see  you  divine  my  motive,"  said  the  doctor.  "  It  is  a 
twofold  one.  A  good  fright,  and  enforced  separation  from  you, 
through  her  own  act,  will  be  the  best  possible  thing  for  your 
wife.     If  that  lesson  fails,  you  may  give  her  up  with  a  good 


352  ST  AND  BY. 

conscience.  Happily  the  law  of  the  land  permits  separation 
without  making  sin  an  indispensable  formality.  And  all  moral 
laws  combine  to  dictate  such  a  course  to  a  man  in  defence  of 
his  life,  his  character,  and  his  proper  career  in  the  world.  Your 
usefulness  is  being  sacrificed." 

"  By  the  way,  doctor,  I  did  not  tell  you  how  my  head  came 
to  be  injured." 

"  And  therefore  I  knew  it  was  by  your  wife.  You  would  not 
otherwise  have  concealed  it." 

Criss  reluctantly  consented  to  go  up  stairs  and  lie  down,  at 
least  for  a  while ;  the  doctor  promising  to  have  Nannie  watched, 
and  let  Criss  know  if  his  presence  was  called  for. 

Surprised  at  his  failure  to  return,  Nannie  sent  a  servant  to 
enquire  if  the  doctor  knew  where  he  was. 

An  answer  to  the  effect  that  he  was  there  very  ill,  and  must 
on  no  account  be  disturbed,  caused  Nannie  to  follow  with  all 
speed. 

She  was  ushered  into  a  room,  and  kept  waiting  for  some  time 
before  anyone  came. 

At  length  Doctress  Markwell  entered,  and  enquired  what  she 
pleased  to  want. 

"  Want !  I  hear  my  husband  is  here,  ill,  and  I  have  come  to 
attend  on  him." 

"  You  are  very  good,  but  he  is  being  perfectly  cared  for,  by 
the  doctor  and  myself." 

"  But  I  am  his  wife,  and  insist  on " 

"  Insist  on  completing  your  work,  and  killing  him  out- 
right ?  " 

"  Out  of  my  way,  woman  !  I  shall  go  to  my  husband."  And 
she  I'ushed  towards  the  stairs. 

"  That  is  quite  out  of  the  question.  He  is  far  away  in  a  place 
secure  from  intrusion,  and  even  from  noise.  You  can  neither 
reach  'him,  nor  make  yourself  heard  by  him.  He  has  friends 
who  love  and  respect  him,  to  care  for  him  now,  thank  God." 

"And  do  you  think  I  do  not  love  him  ?" 

"  It  may  be  with  such  love  as  exists  among  wild  beasts,  but 
not  with  what  human  beings  call  love." 


BY   AND  BY.  S^S 

NanDie  raved  awhile,  but  finding  she  made  no  progress,  at 
length  went  home,  somewhat  calmed  by  the  suggestion  that  it 
would  please  him  best  to  find  that  she  was  attending  to  her 
child. 

Daily  the  same  scene  was  renewed,  the  doctor  remaining 
firm,  in  the  hope  of  conquering  Nannie's  wilfulness,  and  only 
telling  Criss  that  his  wife  came  daily  to  enquire  if  she  might 
come  and  nurse  him.  He  sjioke  with  no  sanguine  anticipation 
of  a  favorable  issue  for  her.  '*  A  woman  who  avows  herself  in- 
different to  consequences,"  he  said,  "  and  at  all  hazards  persists 
in  indulging  her  wildest  impulses,  is  beyond  the  reach  of  skill. 
It  is  a  growth  that  is  needed,  not  an  alterative.  Judging  by 
this  characteristic,  and  what  you  tell  me  of  her  parentage,  I 
should  say  that  she  has  Calvinism  in  the  blood.  No  man  acts 
fairly  by  his  own  life  and  happiness,  unless  he  takes  into 
account  the  character  of  the  stock  with  which  he  allies  himself, 
as  well  as  the  early  training  of  the  individual." 

The  event  proved  the  correctness  of  the  doctor's  prognostica- 
tions. Nannie  soon  forgot  the  lesson  she  had  received,  and 
showed  herself  inaccessible  to  a  sense  even  of  the  most  serious 
consequences.  Her  motto  might  have  been  that  of  the  ancient 
divinity,  "  I  am,  and  what  I  am  I  shall  be,"  for  she  recognized 
uo  law  but  that  of  her  own  unreasoning  will ;  and  self-con- 
sciousness, and  effort  at  amendment  were  altogether  beyond 
her.  •  But  the  end,  for  that  came  at  last,  differed  somewhat 
from  that  which  had  been  foreshadowed.  In  the  meantime 
Criss  threw  all  prescriptions  and  endeavors  to  improve  her,  to 
the  winds,  and  was  kind,  tender,  and  loving,  as  if  she  had 
been  the  best  of  wives,  treating  her  as  a  victim  of  disease,  and 
not  of  mere  wilfulness. 

Intensely  as  Criss  felt  Nannie's  behavior  for  himself,  it  was 
for  her  that  his  feelings  were  most  deeply  exercised.  Wliy 
could  she  not  be  as  perfect  in  all  respects  as  she  was  in  respect 
of  the  functions  specially  belonging  to  her  sex  ?  Surely  the 
old  Oriental  notion  that  man  only  is  endowed  with  soul,  had 
no  foundation  in  fact.  Yet  here  was  one  who  was  a  woman  of 
women,  and  yet  to  all  appearance  utterly  incapable  of  moral 
23 


354  BY  AND  BY. 

development.  With  her,  love  was  all,  and  of  that  she  could  not 
have  enough.  So  conipletel}^  was  her  whole  nature  devoted  to 
it,  that  she  needed  no  distractions  to  enable  her  to  rest  and 
return  to  its  exercise  with  fresh  appetite.  It  seemed  as  if  sex 
had  so  early  attained  its  maturity  in  her  as  to  arrest  and  take 
the  place  of  all  other  development, — a  phenomenon  due,  per- 
chance, thought  Criss,  to  the  tropical  climate  in  which  she  had 
been  reared. 

Pondering  thus,  long  and  anxiously,  and  seeking  as  was  his 
wont,  to  find  a  place  for  her  in  his  generalizations  of  the  world, 
he  became  impressed  with  the  idea  that  hers  might  be  one  of 
those  natures  into  which,  only  through  the  ministration  of  pain, 
coixld  an  avenue  be  opened  for  the  entry  of  the  lacking  soul. 
"  Pain,  Sorrow,  Repentance,  these  constitute,  at  least  for  some, 
the  triune  creator  of  the  human  soul.  The  Fall  was  indeed  a 
rise,  inasmuch  as,  through  the  sorrow  that  followed,  man  found, 
not  lost,  his  soul.  He  was  made  perfect  through  suffering. 
Nannie  !  Nannie !  Am  I  to  be  the  period  to  your  initial  stage 
of  moral  unconsciousness,  and  become  to  you  as  a  schoolmaster 
to  develop  the  inner  life  within  you?  The  gospel  of  grace 
failing,  must  I  fall  back  on  the  law  ?  " 

It  was  not  Criss  alone  who  indulged  in  the  process  of  ratioci- 
nation. Nannie  thought,  too,  sometimes,  or  at  least  carried 
on  a  process  analogous  to  thinking,  in  whatever  it  was  that 
constituted  the  corresponding  part  of  her  system.  Criss's 
musings,  just  recorded,  were  interrupted  by  her  with  the 
remark, — 

"  I  wish,  Criss  dear,  you  would  change  our  doctor,  for  one 
that  has  not  got  a  doctress  for  a  wife." 

"I  am  quite  in  the  dark,"  he  said.  "Tell  me  all  you  are 
thinking,  Nannie." 

"  I  know,"  she  continued,  "  that  you  have  known  him  all 
your  life,  and  look  upon  him  as  a  great  friend,  and  all  that. 
But  now  that  you  are  married,  things  are  different.  You  fancy, 
I  dare  say,  that  a  woman  doctor  is  best  for  a  woman,  as  know- 
ing most  about  her  nature  and  ways?" 

"  Certainly.     Do  you  think  it  is  not  so  ?  " 


BY  AND  BY.  355 

"Oh,  of  course  it  is  so,  and  that  is  my  objection  to  them. 
They  know  too  much,  and  are  apt  to  be  hard  upon  us  in  conse- 
quence. Every  woman  is  cruel  to  other  women,  for  women  all 
look  upon  each  other  as  rivals,  and  they  hurt  each  other  on 
purpose.     I  should  do  just  the  same  if  I  were  a  doctress." 

"  But,  without  quite  agreeing  with  what  you  say  of  your 
sex,"  returned  Criss,  amused  in  spite  of  himself  at  his  wife's 
ascription  of  her  own  irrational  jealousy  to  the  whole  of  her 
sex,  "  I  think  an  arrangement  can  be  made  to  suit  all  parties 
without  my  acting  so  unfriendly  and  rude  a  part  by  a  life-long 
friend.  Suppose  that  for  the  future  Dr.  Markwell  attends  you, 
and  Doctress  Markwell  attends  me  ?  " 

"Criss!  you  wouldn't,  you  daren't,  have  a  woman  to  attend 
you!"  almost  shrieked  jSTannie.  "I  should  kill  her,  I  know  I 
should,  and  I  should  be  quite  justified  in  it.  Besides,  that 
wouldn't  answer  the  purpose  at  all.  For  even  if  she  did  not 
see  me,  he  would  still  be  able  to  consult  her  about  me,  and  she 
would  be  sure  to  advise  what  she  knew  would  hurt  me.  Oh, 
you  don't  know  what  cats  we  women  are  ! " 

"  Well,  Nannie,  you  seem  determined  that  I  shall  not  remain 
in  ignorance.  Perhaps,  after  all,  the  best  way  will  be  for  us  to 
keep  well  so  that  neither  of  us  require  a  doctor.  I  promise  you 
that  I  will  do  all  I  can  on  my  part  to  avoid  calling  in  Mrs. 
Markwell." 

"You  never  do  what  I  wish,  but  always  object  and  argue 
and  make  conditions,  just  as  if  I  was  not  your  wife,  and  had  no 
right  to  have  my  feelings  considered.  I  am  sure  it  is  a  small 
enough  thing  that  I  want — this  time." 

"  A  small  thing !  that  I  should  show  gross  rudeness  and 
ingratitude  to  people  to  whom  I  owe  so  much " 

"  Owe !  why  you  have  paid  them  well " 

Here  Nannie  paused,  for  she  saw  upon  her  husband's  face  an 
expression  of  intense  disgust  at  this  utterance.  For  his  anger 
she  cared  little, — that  was  not  incompatible  with  love.  But 
she  did  not  want  to  incur  his  contempt.  His  reply  convinced 
her  that  she  had  gone  too  far. 

"  I  will  see  what  I  can  do  to  meet  your  wishes,"   he  said 


356  BY  AND  BY. 

coldly,  and  rising  to  leave  tlie  room.  "  Perchance  it  may  be 
better  for  you  to  be  placed  in  a  position  wherein  you  will  be  free 
to  choose  your  own  line  of  action  in  all  things,  without  reference 
to  me.  For  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  agree  upon  a  common 
point  of  view." 

If  Criss  seriously  contemplated  a  separation  from  his  wife,  it 
was  not  for  his  own  sake.  The  very  feminity  of  her  nature 
bound  him  to  her  so  completely,  that  he  would  endure  anything 
that  was  painful  to  himself  merely.  But  he  could  not  imagine 
her  as  equally  wrapped  up  in  him  while  she  persistently 
abstained  from  making  the  slightest  effort  to  mould  herseK  to 
his  wishes.  He  began  to  think  that  she  would  be  both  happier 
and  better  without  him,  perhaps  in  some  other  and  more  con- 
genial association.  The  thought  was  agony  to  him.  But  for 
her  good  he  would  dare  anything. 

A  conversation  which  took  place  that  same  evening  at 
Bertie's  served  to  mature  his  thoughts  on  the  subject.  Avenil 
and  Dr.  Markwell  were  there  together  with  Bertie  and  Criss. 
As  all  were  old  and  attached  friends,  all  rejoiced  in  the  news 
which  Avenil  had  brought  from  town.  It  was  to  the  effect 
that  his  youngest  sister,  Bessie,  had,  after  little  more  than  a 
year  of  separation  from  her  husband,  begged  to  rejoin  him,  and 
her  prayer  had  been  accepted. 

It  had  come  about  in  this  way.  For  the  first  month  of  her  self- 
imposed  widowhood,  Bessie  had  seemed  to  rejoice  in  her  freedom. 
She  owned  herself,  however,  surprised  at  the  lack  of  warmth  with 
which  she  was  received  in  society.  She  could  not  understand 
why  she  should  be  looked  on  coldly  when  she  had  only  exercised 
an  undoubted  right.  Being  strong  and  brave  of  spirit  she 
determined  to  treat  this  as  a  matter  of  little  moment.  At  the 
same  time  she  could  not  help  admitting  to  herself  that  she 
was  more  lonely  than  she  had  expected  to  be  ;  and  she  was 
very  glad  when,  at  the  expiration  of  the  first  six  months,  her 
child  came  to  spend  the  second  half  of  the  year  with  its 
mother.     It  was  a  little  girl,  and  Bessie  took  to  it  with  an 


BY  AND  BY.  357 

ardor  that  astonislied  herself.  Her  period  flew  as  time  had 
never  before  flown  with  Bessie.  She  was  in  despair  when  the 
time  came  for  the  child  to  return  to  its  father.  Seeing  her 
tears  and  agitation,  the  child  remarked, — 

"Papa  cried  too  when  I  came  away  from  him." 

This  put  an  idea  into  Bessie's  head,  but  before  acting  on  it, 
she  determined  to  see  first  how  she  was  affected  by  the  renewed 
separation  from  her  child.  A  short  time  was  sufiicient  to  show 
her  both  that  she  herself  could  not  be  happy  without  it,  and 
that  she  had  inflicted  on  her  husband,  who  evidentl}--  loved  the 
child  as  much  as  she  did,  a  far  greater  degree  of  pain  than  she 
had  been  aware  of.  Her  motives  for  desiring  a  separation  in 
the  first  instance  now  appeared  to  her  to  be  of  the  most  trivial 
and  selfish  character;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  she  doubted  if 
ever  she  could  be  forgiven  and  received  back. 

Forgiven  and  received  back  !  Should  she  stoop  to  this,  and 
put  it  in  the  power  of  people  to  say  that  she  repented  only 
because  she  had  failed  to  get  another  husband? 

The  struggle  was  bitter,  but  it  was  brief.  She  was  an  Avenil, 
and  therefore  had  a  strong  heart  as  well  as  a  strong  head. 
"What  is  it  to  me  what  people  say,  if  I  think  it  right,  and 
choose  to  do  it  ?  " 

In  this  mood  she  wrote  to  her  husband : — 

"  I  have  been  selfish,  but  I  knew  not  how  selfish  until  now. 
Am  I  beyond  your  fogiveness  ?  " 

His  reply  found  her  nearly  distracted  by  the  suspense. 
When  she  read  it,  all  was  joy.     It  ran  thus : — 

"  I  love  you  still  as  ever.  If  you  can  be  content  with  sucli 
love  as  mine,  come." 

To  this  the  little  one  added,  in  her  large  childish  hand, 
"Come,  dear  mamma,"  with  a  rude  circle  drawn  beneath,  in 
which  was  written  the  words  Two  Kisses,  to  signify  that  she 
and  her  father  had  each  imprinted  a  kiss  on  that  spot. 


358  -Si"  ^^^  ^^^ 

''  There  is  no  doubt  what  wouhl  have  been  the  result  under  the 
ancient  law,"  remarked  the  doctor,  when  Avenil  had  finislied 
his  narrative.  "The  unhappy  couple,  unable  to  separate 
legally,  would  have  dwelt  together  in  discontent  and  misery 
until  death  did  them  part,  or  degradation  worse  than  death." 

•'The  child  was  the  real  reconciler,"  observed  Bertie. 

"And  a  very  proper  function  too,  for  a  child,"  said  the 
doctor,  "and  one  fully  recognized  by  the  law  when  it  left  Nature 
free  to  operate  unembarrassed  by  artificial  enactments." 

"  Would  it  not  have  done  as  well,"  suggested  Criss,  "  for 
them  to  have  tried  a  temporary  separation  before  completely 
dissolving  their  vinion  ?  " 

"  Most  assuredly  not,"  said  Avenil.  "  It  is  true  that  but  for 
the  child,  either  or  both  would  probably  have  contracted  a  fresh 
marriage  within  a  year.  But  only  the  conviction  of  the  reality 
of  the  separation  would  have  worked  such  a  change  in  the 
mother.  She  had  long  thought  that  all  was  over.  Her  very 
despair  served  to  redeem  her.  A  separation  which  she  could 
regard  as  terminable  at  any  time  would  have  produced  no  such 
salutary  effect." 

"Redeemed  by  despair,"  repeated  Criss  to  himself,  as  he 
walked,  pondering,  homewards.  "  And  I  had  been  thinking  of 
sorrow  and  suffering,  but  without  the  other  dread  element,  as  a 
means  of  saving  my  own  poor  child,  and  evoking  an  inner  life. 
Would  a  like  regime  answer  with  her  ?  Certainly  not,  unless 
she  voluntarily  undertook  it  herself.  And  this  she  has  no  mo- 
tive or  desire  to  do.  For  she  is  not  really  discontented.  Her 
idea  of  love  is  that  of  a  rapid  alternation  of  conflicts  and  re- 
conciliations. It  includes  a  spice  of  hate  as  an  essential  ingre- 
dient. The  Avenils  have  heads  as  well  as  hearts.  They  can 
commit  mistakes  and  repent,  and  be  better  for  them.  My  poor 
Nannie  has  no  head  to  go  wrong  with,  therefore  none  to  repent 
and  amend  with.  Were  she  to  find  herself  separated  from  me 
for  any  fault  of  hers,  so  far  from  seeing  and  owning  her  fault 
and  improving,  she  would,  like  a  wild  animal,  tear  herself  in 
pieces  with  rage.  Strange  arrest  of  development !  in  all  that 
relates  to  the  fundamental  fact  of  her  being,  she  is,  and  knows 


BY  AND  BY.  359 

herself  to  be,  perfect.  But  of  any  superstructure  that  ought  to 
be  raised  on  that  foundation,  she  comprehends  and  tolerates 
nothing.  What  a  power  she  would  have  been  in  an  Eastern 
Hareem !  How  perverse  the  fate  that  made  her  mistress  of  an 
English  monogamist's  home !  And  yet — and  yet — I  doubt 
whether  she  is  unhappy.  Well,  if  it  be  so,  and  the  suffering  is 
all  mine,  let  it  be  so.  I  can  endure.  And  I  shall  endure  it 
the  better  if  I  believe  that  she  does  not  suffer  likewise." 

So  Criss  reasoned  himself  out  of  the  idea  which  had  sug- 
gested itself  to  him,  the  idea  of  separating  from  Nannie.  He 
did  not  know  that  after  his  departure  from  the  cottage,  his 
friends  discussed  his  case,  and  came  to  a  not  very  different 
conclusion.  Avenil  had  asked  the  doctor  whether  he  thought 
Bessie's  history  would  suggest  to  Criss  a  practical  remedy  for 
his  troubles.     The  answer  was, — 

"  He  will  think  of  it,  and  reject  it  as  not  suited  to  the  pa- 
tient's constitution." 

'*  I  meant  for  his  own  comfort,"  added  Avenil. 

"  He  will  consider  nothing  but  her  good.  His  Christianity 
consists  in  being  faithful  to  his  convictions  even  u^  to  cruci- 
fying-point.  He  knows  that  such  a  measure  as  a  separation 
would  induce  in  her  acute  cerebral  inflammation,  to  which 
madness  would  probably  supervene.  No,  what  she  requires  is 
a  religion.  I  doubt  whether  anything  else  will  reach  her  com- 
plaint." 

"Well,  doctor,"  said  Avenil,  "if  you  have  in  your  pharma- 
copoeia a  religion  capable  of  curing  a  woman  of  jealousy,  the 
sooner  you  prescribe  it  the  better.  But  I  confess  that  I  never 
heard  of  one." 

"I  can  guess,"  remarked  Bertie,  "what  our  dear  boy  himself 
would  say  on  that  point.  He  would  say,  '  If  love  fails,  can  reli- 
gion succeed  ? ' " 

Relief  came  in  a  way  unanticipated  and  undesired.  It  was 
the  time  of  midwinter.  Their  second  child  was  a  few  months 
old.     Nannie  had  retired  to  rest  alone,  for  Criss  had  gone  to  see 


360  SY  AND  BY. 

Bertie,  who  was  again  attacked  with  sudden  and  severe  illness. 
Despite  her  promise  to  go  to  bed  as  usual,  she  had  sat  up  till 
past  midnight  waiting  for  Criss's  return,  as  he  had  promised 
not  to  delay  after  the  dangerous  syuijitoms  had  abated.  At 
length  she  yielded  to  the  entreaties  of  the  nurse,  and  went  to 
bed. 

Criss  remained  with  Bertie  until  the  remedies  had  worked 
the  desired  change.  It  wanted  yet  several  hours  of  daylight 
when  the  doctor  pronounced  the  danger  over  for  the  present. 
Criss  then  started  off  in  a  bitter  storm  of  wind  and  sleet  to 
walk  home. 

He  had  not  gone  far  when  he  thought  he  heard  a  faint  cry, 
as  if  calling  some  one.  Seeing  nothing,  he  continued  his 
course,  but  at  a  slackened  pace.  Presently  there  was  a  sound 
of  steps,  accompanied  by  a  cry  of  agonized  despair.  This 
brought  him  to  a  stand,  and  while  standing  something  rushed 
\ipon  him,  carrying  a  burden,  and  just  as  it  reached  him,  fell 
to  the  ground,  uttering  a  name  which  he  did  not  catch. 

"  My  poor  creature,  who  and  what  is  it  wandering  at  such  a 
time  and  in  such  weather?"  he  exclaimed,  in  a  pitying  tone, 
and  stooping  to  raise  the  prostrate  figure.  "  A  woman !  half 
clad  !  and  a  child  too  !  Come,  let  me  raise  you  up,  and  put 
this  warm  cloak  round  you,  and  if  you  have  no  other  and  near- 
er refuge,  let  me  support  you  to  my  house,  where  you  shall  be 
cared  for.  It  is  enough  to  kill  the  little  one,  to  say  nothing  of 
its  mother,  as  I  suppose  you  to  be." 

"  I  was  forced  to  bring  the  child,  or  it  would  have  cried  and 
awakened  the  nurse  ;  and  they  would  have  prevented  me  from 
coming " 

"  What,  Nannie,"  cried  Criss,  thunderstruck  on  recognizing 
his  own  wife  and  little  son. 

"Yes,"  she  continued,  "it  is  Nannie.  I  was  so  wretched  and 
miserable  without  you,  and  so  frightened  to  think  that — that — 
but  see  !  see  !  the  child  is  warm,  oh,  so  nice  and  warm.  I  kept 
him  so  closel}^  wrapped  up  in  my  shawl.  He  is  quite  warm, 
though  I  have  been  waiting  for  you  to  come  so  long,  so  long. 
I  thought  my  feet  would  have  been  frozen.    Yes,  take  and  carry 


BY   AND  BY.  361 

him  for  me.  Now  I  have  found  you  I  can  forgive  you  all — all. 
And  let  me  hold  your  arm  and  we  will  soon  be  home.  Oh,  not 
so  fast,  I  cannot  keep  up." 

Whatever  Criss  might  feel,  it  was  no  time  to  expend  words 
either  in  anger  or  pity.  With  much  difficulty  he  got  them 
home,  and  having  directed  the  nurse,  whom  he  found  just 
awakened  and  half  distraught  with  fright  on  discovering  their 
absence,  to  put  both  mother  and  child  instantly  into  a  warm 
bath,  he  went  to  his  study  to  summon  Dr.  Markwell. 

A  long  time  of  sadness  followed.  First,  the  little  one  went ; 
and  then  Nannie's  fever  from  cold  and — I  was  about  to  say — 
remorse,  but  to  this,  indomitable  to  the  last,  she  would  never 
own.  The  fever  from  cold  and  excitement  settled  on  her  lungs, 
and  brought  on  a  consumption  which  defied  all  skill. 

During  its  progress,  Nannie  acknowledged  to  Criss  that  in 
her  heart  she  had  always,  even  while  behaving  her  worst,  be- 
lieved firmly  in  the  depth  and  genuineness  of  his  affection. 
Yet,  so  ingrained  in  her  nature  was  the  sentiment  of  jealousy 
which  had  led  to  such  lamentable  results,  that  even  to  the  last 
she  busied  herself  in  contriving  for  Criss  plans  of  dissuasion 
from  a  second  marriage.  In  this  view  she  said  to  him  one 
day,— 

"  Criss,  dear,  I  will  tell  you  a  reason  why  you  ought  never  to 
marry  again.  Your  love  is  of  the  kind  that  would  drive  any 
woman  mad.  By-the-by,  doctor,"  she  said  suddenly  to  him, 
"  am  I  mad  ?  Must  I  not  have  been  mad  to  have  had  such 
impressions  as  I  had,  if  they  were  not  true  ?  " 

"  No,  my  dear  lady.  Everyone  is  liable  to  impressions,  fan- 
cies, or  ideas ;  for  such  things  constitute  an  element  of  thought. 
Madness  consists  in  acting  upon  mere  impressions,  especially 
when  they  are  devoid  of  probability,  and  incapable  of  verifica- 
tion." 

"Tell  me,"  she  said  to  Criss  another  time,  "what  was  your 
feeling  when  I  was  behaving  so  ill, — when  I  struck  you,  for  in- 
stance ?  Weren't  you  in  a  great  rage,  and  longing  to  knock 
me  down  ?  I  know  I  wished  you  had, — sometimes.  I  wanted 
to  feel  that  I  had  good  cause  to  be  naughty." 


362  BY  AND  BY. 

"  My  first  feeling  was  for  you,  my  poor  darling.  I  thought 
of  the  agony  of  unhappiness  you  were  laying  up  for  yourself." 

"Yes,  yes;  that's  quite  true.  It  was  so;  only  I  was  too 
proud  to  let  you  know  it.     But  what  was  the  second  ?  " 

"  The  second  was  a  reflection  which  gave  me  vast  comfort. 
I  felt  that  your  confidence  in  m;f^love  must  indeed  be  unbound- 
ed, when  you  could  subject  it  to  such  severe  tests." 

"I  should  like  to  live,  Criss.  But  no;  it  is  better  I  should 
die.  You  will  alwaj^s  love  me  if  I  go  now.  If  I  were  to  live, 
I  should  do  something  much  worse  than  I  have  done  yet, — 
something  that  would  make  you  hate  me.  Oh,  I  know  I  should  ! 
The  demon  is  too  strong  in  me  for  me  ever  to  be  good.  Unless 
— unless — I  could  remain  always  as  I  am  now.  Do  ask  the 
doctor,  Criss,  if  he  can  keep  me  alive  just  as  I  am,  without  get- 
ting any  better  or  any  worse.  I  think  the  consumption  agrees 
with  me.  I  am  sure  I  feel  better  and  happier,  and  more  good- 
like than  I  ever  did  before  I  had  it.  I  wonder  if  I  could  be- 
have worse  were  I  to  get  well.  I  hope,  Criss,  it  was  not  I  that 
caused  our  little  boy's  death.  Oh,  if  I  did  that,  I  am  a  mur- 
deress already  ! " 

"  My  dearest  Xannie,  put  such  wild  and  dreadful  fancies  out 
of  your  head,"  he  exclaimed;  for  he  was  resolved  to  keep  from 
her  the  agonizing  truth  that  the  child  had  indeed  been  killed 
by  the  exposure  of  that  terrible  night.  Had  her  own  life  not 
l>een  threatened,  such  knowledge  might  have  been  necessary  as 
a  lesson  against  yielding  to  her  uncontrolled  impulses. 

Avenil  rejoiced  in  Criss's  bereavement  almost  as  much  as  he 
had  rejoiced  in  his  marriage.  It  is  true,  he  regarded  Nannie 
as  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  simple  womanhood  he  had 
known,  for  the  potency  in  her  of  the  instinct  of  monopoly,  and 
the  absolute  concentration  of  all  the  faculties  of  her  being  upon 
the  main  function  of  her  sex.  It  was  by  this  light  that  he  was 
wont  to  interpret  the  ancient  legend  of  Eve,  which  represents 
the  woman  as  taking  the  initiative.  In  Avenil's  view,  derived 
from  a  profound  study  of  natural  history,  Nannie  would  have 
been  less  perfect  as  a  woman  had  she  possessed  a  greater  width 
of  intellectual  comprehension. 


BY  AND  BY.  363 

He  thought,  moreover,  that  he  discerned  a  certain  affinity  of 
character  between  the  husband  and  wife,  in  that  each  possessed 
a  highly  emotional  temperament.  Criss's  religiousness,  he  held, 
would  have  endangered  his  sanity,  had  it  not  been  counteracted 
by  a  sound  education  and  training.  It  was  through  the  lack 
of  such  discipline,  that  Nannie's  emotions  had  driven  her  to  the 
borderland  of  madness.  Now  that  men  have  ceased  to  coerce 
their  wives  by  superior  physical  force,  or  to  allow  priests  to  do 
it  for  them  by  means  of  spiritual  terror,  or  society  by  might  of 
conventional  law,  the  only  safeguard  that  women  have  against 
the  tyranny  of  their  own  emotions  is  to  be  found  in  the  training 
of  their  imitative  faculties,  or  whatever  it  is  in  them  that  corres- 
ponds to  the  intellect  in  men.  That  the  entire  female  popula- 
tion of  the  globe  had  escaped  coming  to  utter  grief,  he  held  to 
be  due  to  the  strong  hands  of  the  male  part.  The  necessity  of 
being  cruel  only  to  be  kind,  thus,  to  Avenil,  accounted  fully  and 
satisfactorily  for  the  ancient  regime  of  "injustice  to  women." 
Avenil,  it  should  be  mentioned,  is  not  a  married  man.  He 
has  never,  he  says,  found  time. 

Finding  Criss  continuing  too  long  inconsolable,  his  faithful 
friend,  the  doctor,  ventured  one  day  to  remark,  by  way  of  re- 
monstrance,— 

"You  are  thinking  of  her  as  living  in  all  her  surpassing 
loveliness  and  irresistible  vivacity,  and  without  the  drawback 
of  the  excitability  which  marred  her  perfections.  Endeavor 
rather  to  think  of  the  fate  that  awaited  her  and  you,  if  she  had 
lived.  You,  perhaps,  murdered ;  she,  certainly  in  a  mad-house. 
If  ever  foolish  woman  was  bent  upon  driving  herself  mad,  she 
was.  If  no  other,  let  the  reflection  that  you  are  both  spared 
this,  be  3^our  consolation." 

Nannie's  last  words  had  been, — 

"You  wanted  Nature,  and  you  got  it — pure,  genuine,  un- 
adulterated Nature.  Did  you  not,  Criss  dear  ?  Own  you  did, 
and  say  that  you  liked  it  so, — better  than  if  it  had  been  civilized 
and  tame.  I  know  how  it  is,  Criss.  You  thought  you  were 
wedding  sunshine,  and  you  wedded  a  volcano.     Never  mind, 


364  BY  AND  BY. 

Criss;  it  will  soon  he  an  extinct  one.  Perhaps  it  will  someday 
come  to  be,  for  you,  like  that  one  we  could  see  from  our  place 
in  Soudan,  its  rugged  sides  covered  and  hidden  with  beautiful 
plants  and  flowers.  I  hope,  Criss,  you  will  let  yoiir  ugly 
memories  of  me  be  covered  up  by  fair  ones.  I  can't  bear  there 
should  be  anything  ugly  about  me,  even  when  I  am  dead. 
Don't  cry  for  me  too  long  ;  I  should  never  have  been  any  better 
were  I  to  live  a  thousand  years.  I  am  worse  than  the  volcano. 
I  am  more  like  the  lightning,  that  can  only  blast  and  destroy, 
and  never  produce  anything  good  or  beautiful ;  though  you  did 
tell  me  once  that  the  lightning  and  volcano  have  the  same 
origin  as  the  .°.unshine.  Perhaps  they  have;  I  don't  under- 
stand anything."  I  oaily  know  one  thing,  and  that  is, — I  should 
never  have  been  any  better,  never, — unless  you  beat  me.  Oh, 
Criss,  Criss  !  why  wouldn't  you  beat  me  ?  " 


BOOK    \^. 


CHAPTER  I. 

I  COME  now  to  a  stage  in  my  story  which  I  would  gladly 
omit,  or  at  least  touch  upon  very  lightly.  It  relates  to  myself 
and  my  connection  Avith  the  Carol  family.  That  connection,  it 
is  true,  is  sufficiently  close  and  important  to  make  some  refer- 
ence to  myself  indispensable.  I  am,  nevertheless,  strongly  of 
opinion  that  a  far  less  detailed  account  would  better  tend  to 
maintain  the  harmonious  proportions  of  the  narrative,  while  it 
would  certainly  be  infinitely  more  agreeable  to  my  own  feelings, 
to  say  nothing  of  those  of  my  readers.  Having,  however,  a 
coadjutor  in  the  task,  and  that  one  whom  my  readers  will 
assuredly  recognize  as  entitled  to  dictate,  being  no  other  than 
the  daughter  of  Christmas  Carol,  backed  by  powerful  friends, 
— I  find  myself  overruled,  and  compelled  to  submit.  When  I 
state  that  I  persevered  in  my  opposition  until  sundry  chapters 
of  my  own  biography  had  been  actually  composed  for  me — the 
said  chapters  being  altogether  monstrous  and  impossible,  being 
the  work  of  one  far  too  favorably  disposed  towards  me  to  be 
critical — I  trust  my  readers  will  consider  themselves  fortunate 
in  having  only  this  modicum  of  egotism  thrust  upon  them. 

In  following  my  avocations  as  a  student  in  the  library  of  the 
British  Museum,  it  happens  occasionally  that  I  come  across  old 
books  of  imaginative  fiction,  in  which  the  writers  have  set  down 
their  views  of  the  condition  of  society  when  civilization  should 


366  BY  AND  BY. 

have  advanced  far  beyond  the  stage  reached  in  their  own  day. 
English,  French,  German,  and  American  writers  all  tried  their 
hand  at  such  forecasting  of  the  future ;  but,  ingenious  as  were 
their  attempts,  there  is  one  resjiect  in  which  their  sagacity  was 
wofully  at  fault: — most  of  all  so  in  those  of  France,  where 
ecclesiasticism  and  jjolitical  organization  bore  greatest  sway ; 
and  least  of  all  so  in  those  of  America,  where  individual  freedom 
most  prevailed. 

The  error  of  these  prophets  consisted  in  their  regarding 
physical  science  as  destined  to  dominate  man  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  destroy  the  individuality  of  his  character,  and  mechanise 
his  very  affections.  It  is  true  that  the  writings  to  which  I  am 
referring  belong  principally  to  a  period  when  the  human  mind 
was  yet  so  much  under  the  influence  of  rigid  inflexible  systems 
of  thought  in  religion,  politics,  and  society,  as  to  make  it  very 
difficult  for  men  to  realize  the  true  nature  and  functions  of  the 
new  power  which  was  to  regenerate  the  earth.  They  thought 
that  in  exchanging  Dogma  for  Science  they  would  merely  be 
exchanging  one  hard  master  for  another.  As  it  had  ever  been 
the  aim  of  Dogma  to  crystalize,  if  not  to  suppress,  all  the 
humanity  of  human  nature ;  so  it  would,  they  supposed,  be  the 
business  of  science  to  deprive  character  of  individuality,  and 
life  of  contrast  and  variety,  by  making  all  men  alike,  and  con- 
verting the  world  into  one  vast  Chinese  empire.  My  story 
will  have  failed  in  respect  of  at  least  one  of  its  main  ends,  if  it 
does  not  enable  my  younger  readers  to  see  that  under  the  reign 
of  Science,  Civilization  has  come  to  consist,  not  in  the  sup- 
pression, but  in  the  development  of  individual  character  and 
genius,  to  the  utmost  extent  compatible  with  the  security  and 
convenience  of  the  whole  mass. 

It  is  b}^  many  a  bitter  experience  that  the  world  has  learnt 
that  systems  of  organization  are  no  substitute  for  personal 
development.  The  Ruler,  whether  he  wields  the  sceptre,  the 
lash,  or  that  yet  more  dire  instrument — spiritual  terror — is, 
until  the  principle  of  Fear  be  discarded  altogether  for  that  of 
Knowledge,  but  a  driver  of  slaves  who  will  some  day  break  out 
into  disastrous  revolt.     If  I  have  dwelt  much  on  the  Emanci- 


BY  AND  BY.  367 

pation  and  its  great  achievement — the  liberation  of  the  National 
Church  from  its  dogmatic  basis,  and  the  consequent  preservation 
of  its  organization,  prestige,  and  resources  to  the  State — it  is 
because  this  was  the  event  which  alone  rendered  truly  rational 
education  possible  in  England ;  the  event  which,  by  combating 
and  ultimately  defeating  the  spirit  of  Jesuitism  in  all  its  various 
manifestations  —  ecclesiaticism,  communism,  socialism,  and 
trades-unionism — and  so  destroying  from  among  us  the  love  of 
drilling  and  dictating  to  our  fellows,  and  of  making  ourselves  a 
rule  to  others,  constituted  the  basis  of  all  our  subsequent 
advances.  So  long  as  the  State  supported  tbis  spirit  in  the 
Church,  it  was  powerless  against  its  action  in  society.  Our 
tmreserved  acceptance  of  the  axiom  that  the  prime  function  of 
government  is  the  maintenance  of  liberty,  religious,  political, 
social,  and  industrial,  was  indispensable  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
modern  era.  The  too  long  deferred  assumption  by  Government 
of  the  functions  of  the  Policeman,  strong,  energetic,  and 
ubiquitous,  was  the  death-blow  to  the  tyranny  alike  of  priest 
and  parent,  peasant  and  artisan. 

Then  for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history  was  a  people 
really  free,  free  to  think,  to  speak,  to  work,  to  win,  and  to 
enjoy  ;  free  from  every  tyranny, — saving  one. 

Saving  one :  for  there  was,  and  is,  an  exception  to  the  rule 
of  entire  freedom  ;  an  exception  founded  in  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  our  own  nature,  even  the  tyranny  of  the  Affections, — 
a  tyranny  requiring,  not  less  than  any  other,  the  restraint  of  a 
developed  intellect.  What  mattered  it  to  me  that  I  dwelt  in 
the  land  of  liberty,  where  the  whole  order  of  society  was  con- 
trived expressly  to  secure  my  freedom,  when  feelings  which 
were  a  part  of  myself,  and  from  which  I  could  not  escape, 
demanded  the  sacrifices  which  cost  me  so  dear?  What  mat- 
tered it  that  the  law  of  the  land  would  have  justified  my  eva- 
sion from  all  family  ties,  on  the  plea  that  I  had  a  right  to  my 
own  soul,  and  that  my  soul,  thus  bound,  was  not  my  own,  when 
the  law  of  affection  within  me  compelled  me  to  remain,  even 
at  the  price  of  my  utter  self-annihilation  ?  Useless  indeed,  in 
such  case  to  argue  that  the  individual  ought  to  assert  himself, 


368  BY  AND  BY. 

and  be  true  to  the  lights  vouchsafed  to  him.  The  only  comfort 
possible  for  those  who  have  not  the  resolution  to  declare  them- 
selves in  you,  and  sever  the  connection  ere  it  has  become  con- 
firmed by  time,  consists  in  looking  forward  to  a  day  when  the 
progress  of  enlightenment  shall  have  involved  even  parents 
such  as  those  now  in  the  Remnant,  and  when  the  inalienable 
right  of  children  to  their  own  souls  shall  be  fully  recognized  by 
the  most  indomitable  sectarian.  It  is  to  my  former  associates 
of  the  Remnant  that  I  say  this,  on  the  chance  of  my  pages 
finding  admission- within  those  adamantine  walls.  Those  who 
are  of  the  Emancipation  need  it  not.  They  have  already  long 
since  recognized  it  as  a  sacred  duty  to  encourage  their  children 
to  form  and  follow  their  own  judgment  in  all  matters  of  opinion, 
and  in  all  their  professions  to  put  Conviction  before  Compli- 
'  ance.  It  is  thus  in  reality  as  Avell  as  in  theory,  that  the 
Emancipation  repudiates  the  world-old  practice  of  human  sac- 
rifice. 

How  my  own  eyes  were  first  opened,  and  how  I  first  met 
Christmas  Carol  at  the  Alberthalla — two  events  which  are 
always  associated  together  in  my  mind — have  already  been 
related.  My  story  brings  me  now  to  the  time  when  the  ac- 
quaintance thus  begun  was  to  bear  its  due  fruit. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  I  had  failed  to  recognize  one  in 
whom  my  family  had  so  special  an  interest.  The  fact  is  that, 
although  in  my  childhood  I  had  heard  my  father  speak  of  an 
adventure  which  had  happened  to  him  in  his  youth  in  connec- 
tion with  an  iceberg  and  an  infant,  the  story  had,  through 
my  mother's  reticence,  faded  into  a  dim  tradition. 

It  was  about  eight  years  after  that  first  meeting  before  I 
again  saw  him.  In  the  interval  I  had  become  a  man,  and  his 
name  had  grown  familiar  to  me  as  that  of  one  of  our  most 
honored  citizens,  and  not  less  remarkable  for  his  origin  and 
wealth,  than  for  his  character,  genius,  and  achievements.  Since 
our  first  meeting  I  had  always  kept  him  vividly  before  me, 
watching,  though  from  a  distance,  every  movement  in  which  he 
bore  a  part.  I  longed  intensely  to  know  more  of  him,  but  was 
withheld  by  my  constitutional  shyness  and  a  not  unjustifiable 


BY  AND  BY.  369 

pride,  from  making  any  approach.  There  would  be  naught,  I 
felt,  between  two  men  placed  in  positions  so  different,  save  favor 
from  one  and  obligation  from  the  other. 

Besides,  the  exclusiveness  of  my  family  ties  operated  as  an 
impassable  barrier  to  detain  me  from  the  great  outer  world.  I 
had,  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  now  speaking,  a  twofold  object 
in  life,  namely,  to  keep  from  my  mother  the  knowledge  both  of 
the  change  which  had  come  over  my  religious  opinions,  and  of 
a  serious  reverse  of  fortune  which  had  befallen  me.  Each  of 
us  had  derived  from  my  father  an  income  sufficient  for  all  our 
moderate  wants.  But  I,  being  ambitious  of  something  beyond 
this,  had  put  my  money  into  speculative  investments,  and  lost 
it.  My  mother's  income  was  untouched,  but  it  sufficed  only  for 
herself.  I  hardly  knew  which  intelligence  would  most  grieve 
her,  the  loss  of  my  money  or  tlie  loss  of  my  religion  ;  for  I  was 
far  from  being  convinced  that  her  piety  was  of  that  unpractical 
sort  which  leads  some  persons  to  regard  spiritual  prosperity  as 
a  satisfactory  counterpoise  to  temporal  adversity.  However, 
either  would  cause  her  acute  agony,  and  embitter  the  remainder 
of  her  days.  I  determined,  therefore,  to  make  no  apparent 
diminution  in  the  cost  of  my  living,  but  to  earn  the  means  br 
steadfast  labor.  Even  here  my  adherence  to  the  Remnant 
stood  in  my  way.  I  could  not  look  beyond  our  own  circle  either 
for  the  objects  or  for  the  rewards  of  my  »vork.  All  must  be 
done  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Sect,  or  my  labors  would 
be  regarded  as  unhallowed,  and  myself  as  reprobate.  Even  in 
making  excuses  for  my  newly  found  faculty  of  industrj^,  I  was 
forced  sometimes  to  sail  so  near  the  wind  as  to  feel  very  un- 
comfortable at  the  deceit  I  was  practising.  It  was  only  by 
persuading  myself  that  the  bigotry  in  deference  to  which  I  was 
acting,  was  a  sort  of  madness,  and  that  it  is  lawful  to  deceive  a 
madman  for  his  own  benefit,  that  I  managed  to  reconcile  myself 
to  the  necessity.  If  I  committed  a  wrong  in  thus  acting,  the 
compensation  must  be  found  in  the  motive  that  prompted  it. 
It  was  solely  to  spare  my  mother  the  misery  which  a  knowledge 
of  the  truth  would  have  caused  her. 

That  she  ought  not  to  have  experienced  unhappiness  at  my 
24 


370  J^y  AND  BY. 

following  my  own  judgment,  and  asserting  my  own  individu- 
ality of  character,  I  am  well  aware.  But  it  is  a  fixed  idea 
among  parents  in  the  Remnant,  that  they  are  so  infallibly  right 
in  their  own  notions  respecting  all  things,  that  their  children 
are  hopelessly  lost  if  they  venture  to  differ  from  them.  So 
saturated  are  they  with  a  sense  of  the  Absolute,  as  to  have  no 
comprehension  whatever  of  the  Relative.  It  may  be  asked 
why,  when  I  had  learnt  to  rejoice  in  my  new-found  liberty  of 
soul,  I  did  not  seek  to  make  my  mother  a  sharer  in  my  joy. 
The  answer  is  easy.  I  did  not  think  she  would  be  damned  for 
not  believing  as  I  did.  Whereas  she  was  certain  I  should  be 
damned  for  not  believing  as  she  did.  I  could  not  be  guilty  of 
the  cruelty  of  letting  my  mother  know — at  least  in  this  life, 
where  I  could  prevent  it — that  I  was  to  be  damned. 

I  preferred  that  she  should  think  me  stingy.  I  know  that 
she  thought  I  had  become  unreasonably  economical,  and  ab- 
surdly industrious.  I  know,  too,  that  she  feared  the  effect  of 
my  devotion  to  my  work  on  my  soul's  prospects.  Absorbed  in 
worldly  labor,  I  was  apt  to  be  withdrawn  from  God.  This  was 
a  favorite  notion  in  the  Remnant.  All  doing  was  so  likely  to 
be  wrong-doing,  that  they  held  it  better  to  do  nothing  than  run 
the  risk  of  doing  wrong.  My  art  underwent  a  change.  The 
demand  for  paintings  of  sacred  subjects  being  confined  to  our 
own  sect,  the  sale  was  too  small  to  answer  my  purpose.  Be- 
sides, I  had  become  tired  of  producing  them.  With  my  eman- 
cipation from  bondage  I  had  learnt  to  recognize  the  beauty  and 
sanctity  of  humanity  and  its  affections.  I  painted  a  series  of 
tableaux  illustrative  of  my  new  phase,  but  unfortunately  was 
not  sufficiently  careful  to  conceal  them  from  my  mother's 
watchful  eyes.  She  reproached  me  for  venturing  so  near  the 
"broad  path."  I  took  them  to  the  publishing  office  of  an  Art 
and  Literature  Association  of  high  standing,  and  whose  agent 
I  had  heard  well  spoken  of.  Telling  this  man  my  business,  I 
enjoined  him  to  keep  my  name  absolutely  secret. 

He  was  greatly  surprised  at  the  request,  and  said  it  was  quite 
a  new  thing  to  him  that  an  artist  should  refuse  the  fame  of  his 
work.     "  Was  it  diffidence  ? "  he  would  venture  to  ask,    "  be- 


BY   AND  BY.  371 

cause  there  was  sufficient  talent  in  the  drawings  to  render  such 
a  sentiment  misplaced." 

I  told  him  that  my  reasons  were  connected  with  private  fam- 
ily circumstances,  which,  while  they  induced  me  to  work  for  pay, 
compelled  me  also  to  work  unknown — unknown,  that  was,  to 
my  relatives. 

"  Your  work  would  he  much  more  valuahle,"  he  said,  "  with 
a  name  to  it." 

I  replied  that  I  was  aware  of  that,  hut  for  the  present,  at 
least,  must  he  content  to  he  a  loser  to  that  extent.  Of  the 
two,  fames,  not  fame,  must  he  my  lot  for  the  present. 

He  explained  to  me  that  he  was  only  a  puhlishing  agent  for 
an  Association  of  Authors,  and  that  it  would  be  necessary  to 
submit  them  to  a  committee.  "  We  never,"  he  continued, 
"  issue  any  works  unless  it  appears  to  us  to  possess  a  certain 
amount  of  merit,  and  likely  to  be  acceptable  to  some  class  of 
society, — what  class  does  not  matter  to  us.  Our  imprimatur 
being  svifficient  to  insure  us  against  loss,  we  are  able  to  publish 
everything  at  our  own  risk,  taking  only  a  small  percentage  of 
the  profits  to  reimburse  outlay  and  expenses.  And  as  artists 
do  not  care  to  quaff  their  wine  out  of  the  skulls  of  their 
brethren,  the  rest  goes  to  the  author." 

I  left  my  work  with  him,  and  a  few  days  afterwards  received 
a  note  saying  that  the  committee  had  been  struck  not  only  by 
the  originality  and  execution  of  the  designs,  but  also  by  the 
continuity  of  idea  existing  between  them,  and  were  willing  to 
publish  them  in  a  volume,  if  I  would  provide  a  story  to  Avhich 
they  might  serve  as  illustrations.  But  a  name  must  be  attach- 
ed, though  not  necessarily  the  real  name. 

To  this  I  consented,  and  adopting  a  pseudonym,  set  to  work 
in  the  new  direction.  I  was  by  no  means  satisfied  with  the 
result,  but  the  committee  and  their  agent  were.  The  time 
thus  occupied,  too,  was  so  long,  for  I  got  on  but  slowly,  that 
only  the  hope  of  succeeding  in  laying  a  foundation  for  future 
success  reconciled  me  to  the  privations  I  was  forced  to  undergo 
rather  than  get  into  debt  for  my  living.  My  mother  noticed 
my  loss  of  appetite  at  home.     I  led  her  to  believe  I  had  eaten 


372  BY  AND  BY. 

something  while  out.  I  really  had  lost  my  appetite,  for  I  was 
siek  and  harassed  with  delay  and  ai)i)r('hension. 

The  puhlieation  paid  for  itself,  but  brought  me  little  beyond 
some  favorable  notices  in  the  press.  The  agent,  however, 
assured  me  that  I  had  made  a  good  beginning,  and  my  future 
work  would  be  sought  for,  and  encouraged  me  to  persevere  in 
both  lines.  In  the  meantime  I  was  at  my  wits'  end  to  keep  up 
appearances  at  home.  My  clothes  became  too  shabby  for  me  to 
appear  at  the  social  gatherings  of  our  set ;  and  I  had  to  make 
every  decent  excuse  I  could  think  of  for  not  accompanying  my 
mother  to  the  place  of  worship  where  alone,  in  her  view,  a  soul 
could  gain  a  certainty  of  safety. 

My  physical  strength  became  so  reduced,  that  my  mind  was 
affected  also.  I  actually  envied  those  who  had  none  to  grieve 
over  them  if  they  committed  suicide.  The  object  of  all  ni}"^  en- 
deavors being  to  save  my  mother  from  sorrow  on  whatever  score, 
suicide  was  one  of  the  last  things  I  could,  consistently,  con- 
template. 

One  day  I  called  at  the  publishing  office,  and  told  the  agent 
that  if  he  could  not  dispose  of  the  originals  of  my  drawings  I 
would  take  them  home.  He  said  that  some  enquiries  had  lately 
been  made  by  a  jjerson  who  would  only  purchase  them  on  con- 
dition of  knowing  the  artist's  real  name.  He  added,  with  a 
somewhat  singular  expression  of  countenance,  that  if  he  were 
in  my  place  he  should  think  twice  before  refusing  the  terms. 
But  that,  of  course,  pride  must  be  paid  for. 

"  Pride  !  V  I  exclaimed.  "  Do  you  think  it  is  pride  that 
keeps  me  back  ?     Listen,  and  I  will  tell  you  all." 

He  listened,  and  I  told  him  all,  even  to  how  my  mother  lived 
in  comfort,  while  I  lived  with  her  and  starved,  rather  than  let 
her  know  either  that  I  had  forsaken  her  creed  or  lost  my  own 
fortune.  He  seemed  really  interested,  and  said  he  had  often 
heard  of  such  a  sect  as  the  Remnant,  but  had  no  idea  such  nar- 
rowness could  have  survived  to  our  day.  After  a  good  deal 
more  talk,  he  repeated  his  advice  to  let  him  impart  my  name 
to  the  lady  who  had  taken  a  liking  for  my  drawings. 

"  A  lady ! " 


BY  ANT)  BY.  373 

''  Yes,  one  of  the  P.  M.s.  And  I  assure  you,  you  could  not 
find  a  better  set  of  patrons." 

"P.  M.s!     And  what  may  they  he  ?  "     I  asked. 

"Ah,  sir,  I  forgot.  You  have  lived  out  of  the  world,  and  are 
not  familiar  w^ith  things  that  everybody  else  knows.  The  P.  M.s 
is  a  colloquial  term  for  the  well-known  heiresses'  club,  and 
means  Particular  Maidens.  The  members  are  all  3^oung  ladies 
of  fortune  and  station,  who  decline  the  association  of  merely 
fashionable  and  wealthy  men,  and  make  a  point  of  looking  out 
for  young  men,  especially  struggling  ones,  of  genius  and 
aspiration,  either  to  adorn  their  club  gatherings,  or  to  bestow 
themselves  upon  in  marriage.  I  assure  you,  sir,  you  may 
do  worse  than  dispose  of  your  works  in  that  quarter — or  your- 
self either,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  smiling. 

I  was  still  so  incompletely  emancipated  from  the  traditions 
of  my  sect,  that  I  regarded  all  such  associations  of  women  with, 
a  considerable  amount  of  repugnance.  I  knew  what  they  would 
be  if  composed  of  such  women  as  there  were  in  the  Remnant. 
While  the  idea  of  a  marriage  for  money,  or  of  being  indebted 
to  a  woman  for  the  means  of  living,  excited  my  scorn  and  hor- 
ror. I  said  as  much  to  my  friend,  for  such,  since  I  had  told 
him  my  story,  I  felt  him  to  be. 

He  replied  that  there  was  many  a  nice  woman  who  would  be 
only  grateful  to  a  man  wdiom  she  could  love  and  esteem,  for 
taking  care  of  herself  and  fortune,  and  not  consider  that  he  was 
under  any  obligation  to  her. 

I  confessed  that  I  myself  had  never  been  able  to  see  why  it 
should  not  be  so,  but  that  I  had  never  yet  discovered  a  woman 
whom  I  could  credit  with  the  possession  of  sufficient  magna- 
nimity to  make  such  a  position  tolerable  to  a  man's  self-respect. 
"I  consider,"  I  added,'"  that  the  highest  compliment  that  can 
pass  betw'een  the  sexes,  is  for  a  poor  man  to  marry  a  rich 
woman.  A  man  never  credits  a  w^oman  with  such  largeness  of 
heart  as  when  he  puts  it  in  her  power  to  suspect  him  of  having 
mercenary  motives  in  his  love." 

I  observed  that  as  we  conversed,  he  paused  from  time  to  time 
to  write  something,  but  without  breaking  the  thread  of  our 
talk. 


374  BY  ANU  BY. 

'^  Many  a  man  thinks  in  the  same  way,  while  he  is  young," 
he  said.  "  But  I  never  knew  one  regret  the  money,  however 
much  he  regretted  his  choice  of  a  subject." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "as  I  should  marry  only  for  the  love  that 
would  make  a  home  of  my  home,  such  an  association  as  you  de- 
scribe would  be  to  me  a  constant  sore." 

"  The  money  would  enable  you  to  buy  poultices." 

"I  am  afraid  my  poultice  would  jjrove  a  blister,"  I  answered, 
laughing,  and  departed,  leaving  my  paintings  for  further  con- 
sideration. 


CHAPTER  11. 

The  notion  of  combining  whatever  talents  I  possessed  into  a 
harmonious  whole,  became  especially  pleasing  to  me.  I  had 
always  been  a  dabbler  in  verses,  and  now  glanced  through  my 
portfolio  to  see  if  I  had  any  which  would  bear  illustrating. 
The  artist  who  is  not  a  mere  imitator,  I  held,  ought  to  be  both 
poet  and  painter.  There  can  be  no  reason  why  both  modes  of 
expi-ession  should  not  be  united  in  the  same  work,  as  music 
with  singing.  I  found  some  which  suited  me,  and  having  illus- 
trated them  to  my  fancy,  took  them  tp  the  office.  To  my  intense 
astonishment,  the  agent  at  once  wrote  me  a  cheque  in  payment, 
far  exceeding  anything  I  had  dared  to  hope  for,  even  after  long 
waiting. 

"Soul  is  uj)  in  the  market  just  now,"  he  said,  smiling. 
"  Always  put  soul  into  your  work,  and  it  shall  be  equally  well 
paid." 

"  May  I  ask  any  questions  ?  "  I  enquired. 

"  Nay,  I  cannot  encourage  such  inconsistency  in  one  who 
insists  on  being  himself  anonymous." 

He  then  made  me  an  offer  for  the  originals  of  the  illustra- 
tions already  published.  I  gladly  accepted  it,  and  left  his  office 
with  my  head  in  the  clouds. 


BY  AND  BY.  375 

The  removal  of  one  difficulty  served  to  launch  me  into 
another.  I  could  obtain  payment  provided  I  could  work.  But 
my  mother's  failing  health  made  her  terribly  exacting  in  her 
demands  upon  my  time.  She  could  not  bear  that  I  should  be 
away  from  her  side  ;  and  to  be  with  her  meant  to  be  idle,  so 
far  as  any  paying  work  was  concerned. 

At  length,  becoming  worse,  she  was  recommended  to  pass  the 
summer  at  a  favorite  watering-place  in  Iceland.  It  was  only 
by  means  of  the  money  I  had  earned  that  I  was  enabled  to 
accompany  her.  So  we  went,  she  little  dreaming  on  how  slen- 
der a'chance  my  acquiescence  had  depended,  and  I  shuddering 
at  the  narro^aiess  of  my  escape  from  being  compelled  to  reveal 
to  her  my  poverty  in  justification  of  my  refusal. 

I  had  long  wished  to  see  Iceland, — that  country  without  a 
fellow,  in  the  fantastic  peculiarity  of  its  formation.  I  was 
curious  to  witness  the  giant  contest  between  volcano  and 
glacier ;  to  live  beneath  a  sun  that,  for  the  whole  summer  long, 
scarcely  sets,  and  to  know  also  what  it  was  to  breathe  perpetual 
darkness.  Modern  phj^siologists  had  excited  in  me  a  desire  to 
test,  in  my  own  person,  the  truth  of  their  theories  respecting 
the  influence  iipon  the  human  system  of  the  prolonged  presence 
or  absence  of  sunshine.  I  was  now  to  see  it  tested  upon  her 
in  whom  all  my  affections  were  centered, — even  upon  my 
mother,  whom,  for  the  heart  complaint  that  was  wearing  her 
down,  the  doctors  were  sending  to  pass  the  summer  in  Iceland ; 
for  tl-ue  new  cure  for  such  malady  was  sunshine.  Patients  not 
too  far  gone  to  be  able  to  endure  the  journey,  were  believed  to 
have  been  kept  alive  for  years  by  shifting  their  position,  every 
six  months,  from  one  Pole  to  the  other,  where  Sanatoria  had 
been  made  for  their  reception,  the  journey  between  being  per- 
formed by  air. 

The  physicians  hesitated  to  subject  my  mother  to  the  longer 
journey, — to  the  North  Pole.  Neither  could  she  with  safety 
travel  by  aerial  conveyance.  So  we  went  by  sea,  in  the  Scot- 
and-Ice-land  Ferr}',  and  took  up  our  abode  on  the  northern 
shore  of  the  island.  I  told  the  agent  of  my  intended  journey, 
and  its  cause,  and  of  the  satisfaction  it  gave  me  to  be  able  to 


37G  BY  AND  BY. 

devote  the  first  proceeds  of  my  new  work  to  such  an  object.  I 
said  also  that  I  feared  my  work  would  be  sadly  hindered  by  the 
intcrrnption. 

He  expressed  a  contrary  opinion  on  this  head.  I  was  just 
the  man  that  ought  to  travel.  No  new  scenes  or  experiences 
would  be  thrown  awa}'  upon  my  work.  Let  me  only  give  my- 
self wholly  up  to  nature,  but  "nature  with  a  soul,"  he  said,  and 
I  need  have  no  anxiety  on  the  score  of  success  in  art,  whether 
written  or  painted.  "  In  the  meantime,"  he  added,  "  if  you 
can  manage  to  send  me  any  light  or  fugitive  pieces  struck  off 
in  the  intervals  of  heavier  and  more  permanent  work,  I  will  at 
once  remit  the  proceeds  to  you.  You  must  not  be  above  the 
2)roduction  of  what  the  trade  calls  Pot-hoUers ;  such  things 
have  a  use  above  that  which  their  name  indicates.  They  are  a 
relief  and  rest  from  more  serious  work,  and  enable  the  artist  to 
return  to  it  with  increased  zest.  It  is  not  given  to  mortals  to 
live  always  up  to  the  same  high  pitch.  The  tension  must  be 
loosened  sometimes.  The  universe  is  not  peopled  exclusively 
with  archangels.  The  artist,  as  well  as  the  ordinary  man, 
must  relax  his  morals.  In  other  words,  he  must  condescend  to 
consider  what  other  people  think  and  like,  as  well  as  what  he 
himself  thinks  and  likes.  Granted  that  he  stoops  in  so  doing  ; 
well,  self-abasement,  in  moderation,  may  be  a  judicious  alter- 
ative. It  has  often  happened  that  in  stooping,  he  has  stooped 
to  conquer.  Let  me  give  you  an  instance.  Once  upon  a  time, 
somewhere,  I  believe,  -about  the  beginning  of  the  Emancipation 
jjcriod,  there  was  an  author  who  had  expended  himself  in 
elaborating  his  highest  ideals  of  faith,  and  art,  and  life,  for  the 
elevation  of  his  countrymen.  His  work  was  admired  by  all, 
read  by  many,  enthusiastically  praised  by  some,  but  bought  by 
so  few  (for  they  were  books  of  instruction,  rather  than  amuse- 
ment), that  the  author  himself  was  in  a  fair  way  to  starve  ;  for, 
like  you,  he  had  hazarded  and  lost  the  fortune  he  had  in  posses- 
sion when  he  started  on  his  literary  career. 

"  Well,  he  determined  to  make  the  public  not  only  admire 
and  praise  him,  but  hu])  him.  So  he  set  to  work  and  wrote  a 
tale,  which;  while  outwardly  affecting  to  illustrate  all  the  ex- 


BY   AND  BY  377 

cellencies  of  his  country  and  times,  was  in  reality  a  bitter  satire 
upon  the  follies  and  shams  of  society.  The  rich  bought  it  be- 
cause they  found  in  it  an  apotheosis  of  Dives  ;  the  poor,  because 
it  exalted  Lazarus.  The  sceptical  bought  it  because  it  exposed 
the  fallacies  of  the  priests ;  the  pious,  because  it  upheld  the 
Church  and  respected  religion.  The  Materialists  bought  it 
because  it  represented  matter  as  the  basis  of  the  mind ;  the 
Spiritualists,  because  it  described  mind  as  pervading  and  shap- 
ing matter.  The  old  bought  it  because  it  gave  them  ground  of 
hope  for  an  hereafter  ;  the  young,  because  it  bade  them  make 
the  best  use  of  this  world,  without  reference  to  a  life  beyond. 
The  men  bought  it  because  it  bantered  the  foibles  of  women  ; 
and  the  women,  because  it  upheld  their  claims  as  against  the 
men.  The  ignorant  bought  it  because  they  could  understand 
every  word  in  it ;  and  the  learned,  because  it  contained  an 
esoteric  meaning  discernible  only  by  themselves. 

"So  the  money  poured  in,  and  the  author  became  rich;  but 
the  richer  h-e  became,  the  more  ashamed  he  was  of  himself  and 
of  his  kind.  He  had  at  last  won  success,  but  at  the  expense  of 
his  ideal.  "Was  Satan,  then,  he  asked  himself,  really  the  god 
of  this  world,  and  the  human  conscience  but  a  delusion  and  a 
snare? 

"  Now  mark  the  moral.  By  thus  making  himself,  as  it  were, 
'a  little  lower  than  the  angels' — by  condescending,  I  mean, 
to  an  ideal  more  closely  approximating  to  that  of  the  general — 
he  had  caught  the  public,  and  established  a  rapport  which 
resulted  in  creating  a  demand  for  his  earlier  writings  scarcely 
inferior  to  that  for  his  later  one.  As  the  teacher  of  a  new  faith 
may  work  vulgar  miracles  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  crowd 
to  his  pure  doctrines,  so  his  higher  work  had  been  advertised 
by  his  lower.  I  make  you  a  present  of  the  hint ;  and  wish  you 
fai'ewell." 

''One  word,"  I  said.  "What  was  the  title  of  his  successful 
book  ?     I  have  much  faith  in  titles." 

"As  it  consisted,"  he  replied,  "of  ideas  already  floating, 
more  or  less  vaguely,  in  men's  minds,  and  flattered  the  most 


378  BY  AND  BY. 

popular  feelings,  it  was  very  appropriately  called,  In  the  Air; 
or,  Hade  to  Sell." 

The  early  part  of  my  sojourn  in  Iceland,  was  passed  in 
making  acquaintance  with  the  natural  wonders  of  the  island. 
Now  that  I  had  the  most  invigorating  of  all  diets — Hope — to 
animate  me,  I  could  yield,  without  reserve,  to  the  elation  pro- 
duced by  the  bracing  airs  and  strange  scenery.  My  mind,  thus 
renovated,  rose  to  new  inspirations,  in  which  the  ordinary  and 
the  commonplace  seemed  to  me  to  have  no  part.  I  had  one 
great  work  on  hand,  partly  literar}',  partly  artistic ;  but  I  did 
not  fail  to  follow  the  advice  I  had  received,  and  send  home  from 
time  to  time  the  stray  sjiarks  which  were  struck  out  in  its 
elaboration.  Yet  in  these  I  did  not  consciously  derogate  from 
the  high  ideal  to  which  I  had  devoted  myself.  And.  I  was  most 
thankful  to  be  spared  the  necessity  fordoing  so.  My  publisher 
was  true  to  his  word,  and  thus  I  was  enabled  to  live  in  comfort, 
and  even  to  provide  my  mother  with  little  luxuries  which  had 
otherwise  been  unattainable.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  some  good 
genius  must  have  been  watching  for  my  arrival  at  the  lowest 
depth  of  despair,  in  order  to  seize  the  moment  and  n'lake  it  the 
turning  point  of  my  destiny. 

On  one  point  I  was  somewhat  uneasy.  I  had,  in  oiie  of  my 
moments  of  depression,  made  a  rough  draft  of  an  advertise- 
ment, containing  an  appeal  for  aid  on  behalf  of  a  student  of 
art,  who,  having  lost  his  own  fortune,  desired  the  means  of  con- 
tinuing his  career,  if  any  could  be  found  to  support  him  until 
success  should  enable  him  to  repay  them.  It  was  not  so  much 
that  I  seriously  thought  of  sending  such  an  advertisement  to 
the  i^apers ;  I  had  drawn  it  up  merely  to  see  how  it  would  look 
when  written. 

This  I  had  lost,  and  for  some  time  I  was  under  an  apprehen- 
sion that  my  mother  had  found  it.  Even  when  I  at  length 
ascertained  that  this  was  not  the  case,  I  continued  to  be  uncom- 
fortable at  the  idea  of  its  having  got  into  strange  hands.  I 
shrank  from  the  thought  of  such  a  revelation  of  myself. 

At  first  my  mother  seemed  to  derive  benefit  from  the  change. 


BY  AND  BY.  379 

But  towards  the  end  of  the  summer  she  was  so  decidedly  worse 
that  I  felt  convinced  the  end  could  not  be  far  off.  I  now  found 
myself  in  a  very  curious  frame  of  mind.  Tenderly  attached  as 
I  was  to  her,  and  ready  to  devote  myself  utterly  to  the  promo- 
tion of  her  recovery,  I  was  constantly  pondering  whether  her 
recovery  would  he  the  best  thing  that  could  happen  either  for 
herself  or  for  me.  The  more  I  hated  such  a  line  of  thought 
and  drove  it  from  me,  the  more  it  persisted  in  haunting  me. 
It  was  only  by  resolutely  refusing  to  regard  them  as  my  own 
thoughts,  and  treating  them  as  thoiights  naturally  occurring  to 
a  disinterested  bystander  who  might  be  weighing  all  the  pros 
and  cons  of  the  situation — much,  in  short,  as  Providence  itself 
might  be  supposed  to  do — that  I  kept  myself  from  being  made 
exclusively^  miserable  by  them. 

One  fact  I  could  not  hide  from  myself.  For  our  lives  to  be 
perfectly  happy  it  was  necessary  that  my  mother  and  myself  be 
in  perfect  accord,  without  any  concealments.  I  knew  the  fatal 
influence  of  the  system  of  intellectual  suppression  pursued  in 
the  Remnant,  too  well  not  to  be  aware  that  a  change  on  her 
l)art  was  absolutely  impossible.  All  intellectual  independence 
was  regarded  as  the  result  of  worse  than  moral  depravity. 
And  the  knowledge  that  I  had  come  to  certain  conclusions 
which  did  not  coincide  with  her  own  traditional  ones,  would  be 
accompanied  by  the  conviction  either- thatl  had  been  changed 
at  nurse,  or  that  she  had  given  birth  to  a  child  of  wrath,  with 
whom  she  coiild  have  neither  part  nor  lot  in  the  future  world. 

But,  however  potent  my  motive  for  deception,  and  however 
merciful  to  her  my  resolution,  I  coiild  not  be  blind  to  the  fact 
that  such  habit  of  deception  was  far  from  agreeable  to  myself, 
or  favorable  to  my  moral  health ;  and  also  that  it  was  very 
doubtful  how  long  I  should  be  able  to  maintain  it.  Determined 
as  were  the  efforts  of  the  Remnant  to  shut  out  every  gleam  of 
light  coming  from  the  outer  world,  they  could  not  always  suc- 
ceed in  preventing  names  and  deeds  and  words  of  note  from 
penetrating  into  their  retreat.  The  literary  agent  knew  my 
name,  if  nobody  else  did,  and  so  long  as  it  remained  a  small 
name,  would  probably  keep  it  secret.     But  what  if  it  grew  to 


3S0  BY  AND   BY. 

fame?  Was  mj'  whole  career  to  be  sacrificed,  and  I  sink  to 
lower  aims  and  lower  work,  for  the  express  purpose  of  eluding 
fame  lest  my  name  might  reach  my  mother's  ears  ? 

It  was  thus  a  singular  conflict  of  opposing  feelings  to  which 
I  was  at  this  time  a  prey.  The  Yery  consolation  I  derived  from 
success  was  embittered  by  the  thought  of  the  pleasure  my 
mother  was  losing  through  her  inability  to  sympathize  in  that 
success.  I  learnt  then  that  the  concealment  of  our  joys  from 
those  to  whom  we  are  profoundly  attached,  is  far  more  grievous 
to  endure  than  the  concealment  of  our  sorrows.  If  grief  is 
halved  by  sympathy,  assuredly  joy  is  more  than  doubled. 

That  in  the  event  of  my  mother's  death,  her  income  would 
become  mine,  was  a  motive  which,  I  rejoice  to  say,  scarce  thrust 
itself  at  all  before  me.  It  was  only  my  resolute  resolve  to 
drive  all  such  canvassings  away  as  the  snares  of  an  enemy,  and 
combine  to  the  very  best  of  my  ability,  my  work  with  her 
health  and  comfort,  that  carried  me  through  this  distressing 
period,  and  when  at  length  she  departed,  prevented  my  having 
any  feeling  regarding  myself,  save  the  satisfaction  of  having 
sacrificed  myself  to  the  utmost  for  her. 

Her  death  was  doubtless  accelerated  by  the  unusuall}''  severe 
climate  of  that  season.  As  I  have  since  learnt,  it  not  unfre- 
quently  happens  that  large  masses  of  ice  become  detached  from 
the  coast  of  Greenland  and  drift  across  to  Iceland,  where  they 
form  into  a  compact  body,  and  for  the  time  utterly  ruin  the 
climate  of  the  island.  This  was  the  case  in  the  year  that  we 
were  there.  AVhat  we  ought  to  haA'e  done  was  to  go  on  to  the 
clear  warm  seas  at  the  Pole ;  but  my  mother  could  not  or  would 
not  make  another  move.  Even  the  homeward  jiassage  by  sea 
was  closed  by  the  ice,  and  it  was  useless  to  propose  to  her  to 
travel  by  air. 

After  her  death  my  grief  and  sense  of  isolation  were  very 
keen.  She  had  marry  friends  and  I  had  many  acquaintances 
in  the  Remnant.  But  from  all  these  I  was  now  cut  off.  I  was 
not  one  of  themselves,  and  did  not  intend  to  claim  a  place 
among  them  under  false  pretences.  That  was  over  for  me. 
But  elsewhere  1  knew  not  where  to  seek  for  a' friend,  scarcely 


BY  AND  BY.  381 

for  an  acquaintance.  The  ordinary  engrossments  for  men  of 
my  age,  love  and  marriage,  were  beyond  the  reach  even  of  my 
dreams.  Putting  all  my  work  aside,  I  allowed  the  Arctic  win- 
ter that  was  closing  in  upon  tfie  isle  to  enshroud  my  spirits 
with  a  more  than  Arctic  dreariness.  A  volume  of  narratives 
of  the  Arctic  explorations  of  old  times — when  men  were  forced 
to  content  themselves  with  traversing  the  surface  of  the  earth 
without  cutting  the  knot  of  tlieir  difficulties  by  soaring  into  the 
air — helped  to  beguile  but  not  to  cheer  those  dark  days. 
Having  some  of  my  father's  papers  with  me,  I  chose  that  season 
for  looking  through  them.  Among  them  I  found  some  lines 
indicating  that  he,  too,  had  vividly  realized  a  like  situation, 
aided  no  doubt  by  his  recollections  of  his  own  early  adventure. 
The  lines  in  question  had  been  suggested  by  the  story  of  an 
explorer  who  had  lost  the  whole  of  his  comrades,  and  remained 
prisoned  fast  for  successive  years  from  all  possibility  of  return- 
ing to  his  home  and  his  love.  It  is,  however,  less  for  any 
intrinsic  quality  than  for  their  connection  with  our  story,  that 
I  have  thought  fit  to  insert  them  here,  and  consented  to  do  the 
same  with  those  of  my  own  wliich  follow  :— 

"  As  Arctic  voyagers  raiise  upon  the  zone 
Wherein  tliey  gatliered  up  their  sunny  youth, 
And  glow  again  amid  the  chilling  scene — 
A  brief  relapse  of  joy,  when  pent  among 
Those  everlasting  solitudes,  to  think 
The  sun  still  shines  afar,  but  not  for  them, 
And  ne'er  for  them  may  shine :  to  know  that  soon 
Those  joyless  seas  may  be  a  burial  place 
From  which  their  frozen  souls  will  hardly  mount; 
Or  should  they  chance  to  'scape  their  shattered  bark, 
'Tis  but  to  drag  a  drear  existence  on, 
A  Lapland  life  instead  of  genial  home — 
Thus  must  I  lead  a  dull  inferior  lot. 
No  warmth  without,  but  that  one  fire  within, 
Cherished  as  life  from  the  surrounding  cold." 

When  I  resumed  work  I  illustrated  these  lines — supplying 
the  sun's  absence. by  an  electric-lamp — and  forwarded  the  result 
to  the  literary  agent  by  aeromotive,   a  regular  service  being 


382  BY  AND  BY. 

maintained  tlironghout  the  year.  I  could  not  make  np  my 
mind  to  return  home  myself,  simply  because  I  felt  that  I  had 
no  home  to  return  to,  and  was  not  yet  equal  to  the  task  of  seek- 
ing for  one.  I  was  not  unhappy ;  for  the  release  from  the 
constant  anxiety  and  concealment  of  my  later  years,  operated 
to  balance  my  sense  of  bereavement.  Moreover,  my  mother 
had  been  spared  the  pain  of  knowing  that  I  was  an  apostate. 
If,  where  she  was  now,  the  knowledge  had  reached  her,  she 
would  with  that  knowledge,  know  also  the  sanctity  of  the 
instinct  and  the  resolve  which  had  guided  me.  For  do  not  tJie 
dead  see  things  "with  larger  other  eyes?" 

The  keenness  of  my  sensations  under  my  new  position,  and 
the  weird  wildness  of  the  country,  brought  me  several  inspira- 
tions which  I  duly  turned  to  account,  never  failing  to  receive 
immediate  and  satisfactory  returns.  I  thus  came  to  welcome 
any  occurrence  which  afforded  me  a  vivid  idea,  that  might  be 
both  poetically  and  pictorially  expressed.  It  was  an  additional 
satisfaction  to  me  to  find  that  some  of  my  lines  were  deemed 
worthy  also  of  musical  expression ;  and  that,  through  the  same 
kind  agency,  I  gained  an  advantage  from  their  publication  as 
songs. 

I  mention  these  details  by  way  of  leading  up  to  an  incident 
which  not  only  provided  me  in  the  first  instance  with  a  subject 
for  illustration,  but  ultimately  affected  the  whole  tenor  of  my 
life. 

The  summer  sojourners  in  Iceland  had  all  taken  flight.  I 
thought  myself  the  sole  stranger  in  the  island.  My  principal 
delight  after  the  day's  work  was  over,  was  to  go  down  to  the 
shore  and  watch  the  masses  of  ice  growing  into  bergs,  as  by  the 
pressure  of  the  ice  fields  which  now  extended  far  beyond  the 
horizon,  it  was  forced  up  into  conjunction  with  the  glaciers 
which  descended  from  the  mountains.  The  aspect  of  the 
fantastic  shapes,  and  the  strange  groaning  and  travailing  of  the 
massive  crystal,  as  if  in  the  throes  of  a  new  birth — the  whole  at 
times  transparent  with  magical  light  of  blue  or  green,  or  glist- 
ening and  crackling  as  it  reflected  the  gleams  of  the  Aurora — 
exercised   a   fascination  which   I    found   it  hard  to  shake   off. 


BY  AND  BY.  383 

The  natives,  either  from  use  or  from  dulness,  were  insensible 
to  the  scene ;  and  my  enjoyment  therefore  was  wont  to  he  a 
solitary  one. 

One  evening,  however,  I  detected  a  figure  moving  on  the  ice 
at  a  perilous  distance  from  the  shore.  After  watching  its 
movements  for  some  time,  my  eyes  became  sufficiently  accus- 
tomed to  the  dim  light  to  perceive  that  it  was  a  woman.  Now 
and  then  sovmds  reached  me  as  of  one  declaiming,  and  the  idea 
was  borne  out  by  the  motion  of  the  arms.  She  passed  near  me 
on  her  return  to  the  shore,  but  without  perceiving  me,  and  to 
my  surprise  I  recognized  her  as  one  of  the  visitors  of  the  past 
summer ;  an  exceedingly  lovely  girl  of  some  eighteen  years  of 
age,  whose  variableness  of  expression  had  often  struck  me,  when 
I  had  passed  her  walking  with  her  companion,  a  fair  handsome 
middle-aged  lady. 

The  aspect  of  this  girl  produced  on  me  the  impression  that 
she  was  suffering  from  some  heart-affection,  but  not  of  the  kind 
for  which  a  sojourn  in  Iceland  is  commonly  prescribed.  When 
her  thoughts  were  diverted  from  herself,  it  seemed  to  me,  no 
maiden  could  be  more  bright  and  gleeful.  Absorbed  in  con- 
templation, she  was  the  picture  of  woe. 

After  seeing  that  she  had  returned  safe  to  her  dwelling,  I 
suffered  my  imagination  to  dwell  on  her,  and  her  strange 
manner  and  reckless  action ;  and  to  frame  an  hypothesis  which 
found  vent  in  the  following  verses. 

A  maiden  stood  on  a  sunny  shore, 

Where  the  waters  rippled  brightly, 
And  tender  breezes  gently  bore 

The  song  she  sang  so  lightly. 
"  Dance  as  thou  wilt,  oh  happy  sea ! 
My  heart  leaps  up  in  gladder  glee, 
Far  brighter  rays  within  me  shine, 
Than  gild  that  dazzling  breast  of  thine !  " 

A  woman  stood  on  the  rocky  shore. 
Where  the  waves  were  driving  madly, 

And  scarce  was  heard  amid  their  roar, 
The  strain  she.  poured  so  sadly. 


384  BY  AND  BY. 

"  Rave  as  thou  wilt,  oh,  driven  sea, 
Thou  canst  not  match  my  agony: 
On  sharper  rocks  than  thou  dost  know, 
My  all  of  joy  is  dashed  to  woe." 

Again,  beside  the  ice-bound  shore, 

Where  the  ocean,  frozen,  slumbers; 
The  wintry  breezes  slowly  bore 

Her  low  and  measured  numbers. 

"  Freeze  to  thy  depths,  oh  marble  sea ; 

This  heart  will  colder,  harder  be! 

Nor  sun,  nor  wind,  again  can  move 

My  stricken  soul  to  life  or  love." 

Having  illustrated  these  verses,  making  for  the  last  one  a 
fac-simile  of  the  scene  I  had  witnessed,  and  vidiich  had  sug- 
gested them,  I  sent  my  work  home ;  hut  could  not  so  easily 
dismiss  this  lovely,  and  evidently  unhappy,  girl  from  my  mind. 
I  sought  for  opportunities  of  seeing  her  close.  I  ascertained 
the  name  she  and  her  companion  were  known  by,  but  it  was 
strange  to  me.  So  far  as  was  apparent,  they  were  mother  and 
daughter,  in  retirement  for  the  daughter's  health. 

My  glimpses  of  them  were  but  rare,  and  the  scene  on  the 
shore  was  not  repeated.  However,  I  saw  the  young  lady  close 
enough  and  often  enough  to  become  deeply  impressed  with  a 
sense  of  her  beauty  and  worth.  Whether  or  not  I  was  abso- 
lutely in  love,  I  do  not  undertake  to  determine.  I  tried  to 
think  that  I  was  not,  but  that  only  my  fancy  was  touched,  for 
the  idea  of  coining  my  heart  into  money  was  infinitely  repug- 
nant to  me.  I  have  reason  to  believe,  however,  that  the  most 
popular  able-book  in  London,  and  particularly  in  the  Triangle, 
before  that  winter  was  over,  was  one  which  contained  the  two 
sets  of  verses  just  given,  with  illustrations  in  which  the  color- 
printers  had  admirably  seconded  the  artist's  designs;  and  also 
a  third  set,  upon  the  significance  of  which  the  reader  may  form 
his  own  h^'pothesis ;  the  whole  volume  being  entitled  Winter 
Reminiscences  of  an  Artist  in  Iceland. 

Why  haunt  me  when  I  know  thou  dost  not  love  me? 
Why  haunt  me  when  thou  never  canst  be  mine? 


BY   AND  BY.  385 

'Tis  not  thy  bliss  to  fill  the  air  above  me 
With  gleams  of  visions  false  e'en  while  divine. 

Why  wilt  thou  still  diffuse  thy  look  and  tone 

O'er  every  spot  my  wand'ring  footsteps  seek  ? 
Why  leave  me  not  to  tread  my  path  alone, 
Un watched  by  eyes  of  thine,  so  pure  and  meek? 

Yet,  no,  I  cannot  with  thine  image  part, 

Or  cease  with  thoughts  of  thee  my  soul  to  fill. 
Thou  dost  not  love  me,  perfect  as  thou  art ; 
But  I  love  ever,  therefore  haunt  me  still ! 


«  » ■ »  > 


CHAPTEE   III. 

On  my  return  to  England,  I  took  up  a  temporary  abode  in 
the  Intellectual  quarter  in  London,  and  removed  thither  all  my 
effects,  thus  completely  forsaking  both  the  neighborhood  and 
the  associations  of  the  Remnant,  I  was  enabled  to  do  this 
without  regret,  regarding,  as  I  did,  that  sect  as  the  cause  of  all 
the  miseries  of  my  life,  foremost  among  which  stood  the  barrier 
erected  by  their  superstition  between  my  mother's  soul  and  my 
own.  Regarding,  I  say,  this  sect  as  worshippers  of  a  demon, 
and  believers  in  human  sacrifices,  sacrifices  of  minds  arid  con- 
sciences, if  not  of  body,  I  was  not  disposed  to  endure  the 
remonstrances  which  my  apostacy  was  sure  to  evoke  from  my 
mother's  friends.  As  I  had  no  notion  of  letting  my  purpose 
be  affected  by  anything  they  might  say,  I  thought  it  best  to 
escape  the  annoyance  of  listening  to  them,  by  holding  myself 
altogether  aloof. 

But,  while  thus  abhorring  the  system  to  which  I  had  been 
subjected,  and  resenting  the  unhappiness  it  had  caused  me,  I 
found  myself  hesitating  to  declare  positively  that  the  evil  had, 
in  my  case,  been  an  unmixed  one.  I  fancied  that  I  could  trace 
the  development  of  anything  that  might  be  valuable  in  my 
25 


.38G  BY  AND  BY. 

disposition  or  character  to  the  hard  training  I  had  undergone 
in  the  conflict  between  duty  and  affection.  But  though,  for  me, 
from  evil  had  been  educed  good,  it  did  not  follow  that  I  should 
be  kindly  affected  towards  the  evil.  Besides,  might  not  the 
character  which  was  capable  of  such  alchemy,  have  been,  under 
other  and  more  favorable  conditions,  far  more  advantageously 
developed. 

I  said  something  of  this  kind  one  evening,  when  in  convel-sa- 
tion  with  a  little  group  of  men  whom  I  met  in  the  salon  of  the 
Triangle.  j\Iy  friend,  the  literary  agent,  was  a  member,  and 
on  my  returning  to  England  free  from  all  motive  for  conceal- 
ment, he  introduced  me  to  the  Club  as  a  visitor.  The  evening 
in  question  was  the  first  I  had  ever  passed  in  society  that  was 
congenial  to  me.  I  was  so  little  accustomed  to  the  ways  of  the 
living  world,  that,  while  observing  with  all  my  eyes,  and  lis- 
tening with  all  my  ears,  I  scarcely  ventured  to  exercise  my 
tongue.  In  fact,  I  felt  very  much  as  I  imagine  one  to  feel 
who,  after  being  blind  for  years,  first  opens  his  eyes  upon  the 
things  around  him. 

But  the  kindness  I  met  with  when  it  was  known  that  I  was 
not  merely  the  artist  of  several  of  the  favorite  books  then  lying 
on  the  salon  table,  but  one  of  the  family  of  Wilmers  who  had 
been  so  long  and  favorably  known  in  the  Triangle  as  the  close 
friends  of  the  Avenils,  and  their  early  associates  in  the  guar- 
dianship of  the  young  Carol,  whose  name  had  since  been  in 
the  mouths,  and  whose  character  in  the  hearts,  of  all  men, — the 
kindness  I  hereupon  met  with  broke  down  all  my  diffidence  and 
reserve,  and  made  me  feel  that  at  last  I  had  come  among  my 
own  kind.  A  stray  soul  welcomed  to  bliss  by  sympathizing 
angels,  could  not  feel  otherwise  than  I  did  on  that  ever-to-be- 
remembered  CA^ening. 

The  group  to  which  I  had  been  introduced  consisted  of  my 
host.  Lord  Avenil  and  some  of  his  sisters,  the  son  of  Mistress 
Susanna,  a  fine  young  fellow  of  nearly  my  own  age,  who  bore 
his  mother's  name,  and  another,  who  at  first  sat  writing  at  a 
table  near  us,  and  to  whom  my  host  said  he  would  presently  in- 
troduce me. 


BY  AND  BY.  387 

Zoung  Avenil  apologized  for  the  absence  of  several  of  his 
aunts  and  cousins,  who  he  said  would  otherwise  have  made  a 
point  of  being  present  to  welcome  me,  but  were  under  an  obli- 
gation to  attend  in  some  distant  town  at  the  opening  of  a  new 
Triangle,  of  which  they  were  the  architects  and  decorators. 

The  questions  with  which  I  was  plied  respecting  the  history 
of  my  family  since  their  secession  from  the  world  to  the  Rem- 
nant, and  the  nature  of  the  life  led  by  the  sect,  gave  me  plenty 
to  say  without  betraying  my  ignorance  of  things  in  general. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  the  man  who  sat  at  the  writing  table, 
though  apparently  intent  on  his  occupation,  was  not  unobserv- 
ant of  our  conversation.  His  face  was  in  shade,  and  I  could 
not  discern  his  features,  but  thought  that  I  could  now  and  then 
feel  a  gleam,  as  from  lustrous  eyes,  resting  upon  me. 

I  had,  in  replj'"  to  their  friendly  curiosity,  been  describing 
the  feelings  with  which  I  now  regarded  the  sect  from  whose 
blighting  influences  I  had  effected  my  escape,  very  much  in  the 
terms  I  have  set  down  a  little  above.  The  stranger  had  caught 
ray  words,  and  apparently  found  some  chord  in  his  nature 
struck  by  them.  For  the  first  time  he  joined  in  the  ■  conversa- 
tion, saying,  without  a  word  of  ceremony, — 

"  Your  own  nature  has  divined  the  spell  with  which  once  upon 
a  time  I  found  mj^self  obliged  to  conjure  away  the  demon  of  ne- 
gation for  a  young  friend  in  circumstances  not  altogether  differ- 
ent from  your  own.  He,  too,  was  an  artist,  but  through  ease 
of  circumstances  was  idle  and  luxurious.  He  believed  in  the 
superintendence  of  unseen  influences,  and  reproached  them  for 
not  interfering  to  save  his  life  from  being  wasted,  but  had  not 
strength  of  resolution  to  make  the  necessary  effort  himself. 
Prayer,  as  you  doubtless  have  often  observed,  is  very  apt  to 
take  the  form  of  requiring  another  to  do  our  duty  for  us.  In 
the  wantonness  of  idleness  he  took  to  gambling,  and  did  not 
leave  it  until  he  had  lost  the  whole  of  his  fortune.  He  was 
now  more  than  ever  bitter  against  those  whom  he  considered  as 
the  guardians  of  his  fate.  But  he  had  not  leisure  to  indulge 
his  bitterness.  Necessity  compelled  him  to  turn  his  hand  to 
toil.     I  watched,  but  said  nothing.     His  work  succeeded,  for  it 


388  BY  AND  BY. 

was  very  good,  and  he  made  a  name  and  a  fortune.  '  I  have 
beaten  the  spirits/  he  said  to  me  exultingl}^  'When  I  trusted 
myself  to  fortune  they  let  it  turn  against  me,  and  ruin  me. 
I  have  re-made  myself  by  myself  !  No  thanks  to  my  kind  guar- 
dians ! ' 

" '  And  you  are  happier  now,'  I  said,  '  than  before  your  ad- 
versity ? ' 

"  '  Happier  and  better.     It  has  made  me  a  man  ! ' 

'"And  without  your  providential  spirits  having  any  haiicl  in 
it?' 

"  '  Why,  they  turned  the  luck  against  me,'  he  said. 

"  'But  if  you  are  so  much  better,'  I  asked,  'can  you  say  the 
luck  was  really  against  you  ?  ' 

" '  Ah,  I  see  ! '  he  said,  and  added,  '  It  is  a  case,  I  suppose,  of 
things  working  together  for  good.  But  I  did  not  know  that  I 
could  be  called  one  who  "  loved  God."  " 

"And  of  course  j^ou  suggested  that  perhaps  the  love  was  the 
other  way,"  interposed  Lord  Avenil,  addressing  the  speaker. 
"But,  my  dear  Carol,  do  you  know  that  that  is  the  most  im- 
moral story  I  ever  heard  even  you  tell.  It  is  a  direct  incentive 
to  gambling.  What  will  our  new-found  friend  here  think  of 
the  company  he  has  got  among.  Come,  I  am  glad  you  have 
done  writing.  I  have  been  wanting  to  introduce  you  to  the 
son  of  your  earliest  nurse,  Lawrence  Wilmer,  in  whose  arms 
you  were  first  dandled  on  the  iceberg,  and  to  whose  ingenuity 
you  owe  your  very  name." 

"  I  am  glad  you  did  not  introduce  us  before,"  said  the  other, 
rising  and  advancing  to  me  with  the  look  in  his  eyes  and  over 
his  whole  countenance  that  I  well  remembered, — the  look  that 
perforce  drew  all  men  to  him.  "  I  am  glad  you  did  not  introduce 
us  before.  The  delay  has  enabled  me  to  wish  to  know  the  son 
of  my  dear  lost  Lawrence  Wilmer  for  his  own  sake,  as  well  as  for 
his  father's.  But  you  must  know,"  he  added,  "  that  unless  I 
am  very  much  mistaken,  this  is  not  our  first  interview.  Am  I 
not  right  ?  "  he  said,  addressing  me. 

"  It  is  so,  indeed,"  I  said,  "  and  that  first  interview  has  never 
left  my  memory.     But  I  did  not  think  our  few  moments'  con- 


BY  AND  BY.  389 

verse  in  the  Alberthalla  could  have  enabled  you  to  remember 
me.     Besides,  I  was  but  a  lad  then." 

''  Ah,"  he  replied,  "  I  read  souls,  not  faces  merely.  And  I 
am  disposed  to  think  that  though  your  face  be  older,  your  soul 
is  3^ounger  than  it  then  was." 

The  conversation  which  followed  was  of  a  kind  the  most 
grateful  to  me,  making  me  feel  that  from  an  adventurer  and  an 
outcast,  I  bad  become  a  member  of  a  family  and  a  home.  I 
was  about  to  retire  with  the  friend  who  had  brought  me,  but 
was  stopped  b}-  Carol,  who  said  that  he  would  take  it  as  a  great 
favor  if  I  would  accompany  him  to  his  own  rooms,  as  he  wished 
some  furtber  converse  with  me.  He  then  walked  some  steps 
with  the  literary  agent,  and  I  beard  him  on  parting  from  him 
say,— 

''  My  dear  sir,  you  have  performed  my  commission  to  my 
complete  satisfaction,  and  earned  my  warm  gratitude.  He 
seems  all  that  you  have  described  him." 

Then  rejoining  the  party,  he  said, — 

"  Avenil,  you  will  forgive  my  appropriation  of  our  friend  for 
the  rest  of  the  evening.  There  is  much  that  I  wish  to  talk 
about  with  him.  Indeed,  you  must  not  be  surprised  if  1  grudge 
a  large  share  of  him  at  all." 

Thus  I  found  myself  installed  more  as  a  son  than  as  a  stran- 
ger in  the  private  dwelling-rooms  of  Christmas  Carol.  The 
oiily  cliange  I  noted  in  him  was  that  he  seemed  at  times  less 
buoyant  of  manner  and  spirit  than  he  had  at  first  appeared 
to  me,  as  if  through  the  burden  of  some  present  grief.  But 
this  was  only  when  silent.     In  conversing  he  was  all  himself. 

To  my  surprise,  what  he  took  most  interest  in  was  my  recent 
sojourn  in  Iceland.  The  few  questions  he  asked  about  my 
previous  life  indicated  a  familiarity  with  it  altogether  unac- 
countable to  me  at  that  time.  The  incidents  of  my  stay  in 
Iceland,  which  had  suggested  the  verses  and  illustrations  al- 
ready referred  to,  were  the  points  on  which  he  seemed  specially 
anxious  to  gather  information. 


390  BY  AND  BY. 

I  told  him  all  I  had  seen  that  hore  on  the  suhject,  not  con- 
cealing the  sentiment  which  had  been  evoked  in  my  breast.  I 
acknowledged  my  ignorance  as  to  how  far  love  or  compassion 
predominated  in  me.  That  the  damsel  was  as  pure  and  good 
as  she  was  beautiful  and  sad,  I  declared  that  I  had  no  man- 
ner of  doubt,  and  should  esteem  myself  fortunate  could  I  have 
the  privilege  of  consoling  her. 

He  said  that,  artist-like,  I  had  evidently  constructed  a  com- 
plete romance  upon  a  slender  foundation ;  and  that  it  would 
probably  be  better  for  my  career  as  an  artist,  as  well  as  for  my 
happiness,  were  I  to  keep  to  my  dream,  and  shun  the  reality. 
He  added  with  a  smile,  which  appeared  to  me  to  have  in  it 
more  of  sadness  than  of  mirth,  that  he  hoped  I  was  not  seriously 
smitten. 

I  replied  that  I  did  not  think  I  was  at  present,  but  felt  that 
I  might  \Qvy  easily  become  so,  inasmuch  as  I  was  singularly 
amenable  to  the  influence  of  faces  and  voices,  and  had  consider- 
able faith  in  my  faculty  of  divining  character  by  them.  I 
added  that  the  conclusion  which  now  seemed  to  me  most  prob- 
able, was  that  this  young  lady  was  suffering  as  much  through 
her  own  act  as  through  that  of  another,  for  I  had  read  in  her 
looks  contrition  as  well  as  resignation ;  yet  nevertheless,  I  was 
convinced  that  even  if  she  had  herself  committed  a  wrong,  it 
was  not  through  lack,  but  through  excess  of  heart ;  and  1  could 
forgive  any  act  that  had  been  thus  prompted,  no  matter  what 
it  might  be.  "In  the  sect  in  which  I  was  brought  up,"  I 
added,  "we  profess  to  hoW.  in  high  estimation  a  book  which  we 
are  taught  to  believe  is  now-a-days  little  considered  by  any  but 
ourselves, — not  that  we  understand  it,  or  get  much  beside  harm 
from  it.  I  have,  however,  always  found  a  mighty  significance 
in  one  of  its  utterances.  It  is  this: — 'Her  sins,  which  are 
many,  are  forgiven  her,  for  she  loved  much.'  My  own  people, 
following,  I  believe,  some  of  the  early  Christian  fathers,  hold 
that  this  sentence  ought  to  be  expunged,  as  having  an  immoral 
tendency.  For  me,  it  contains  the  whole  gospel.  1  cannot 
bring  myself  even  to  regard  as  sin  that  which  is  done  for  Jove, 
and  not  for  seK." 


BY  AND  BY.  391 

I  suffered  myself  to  be  led  on  in  this  way,  seeing  that,  so  far 
from  attempting  to  direct  the  conversation  into  another  chan- 
nel, he  was  at  least  content  with  the  topic.  To  myself  it  was 
so  great  a  relief,  after  my  life  of  suppression  and  reticence,  to 
utter  my  mind  freely  to  one  whom  I  intuitively  recognized  as 
capable  of  comprehending  me,  that  I  experienced  not  the  slight- 
est pang  at  such  departure  from  my  habitual  reserve. 

"  We  have  left  far  behind  us,"  he  remarked,  in  an  absent, 
meditative  manner,  "the  times  in  which  love  and  sin  were  com- 
monly linked  together  in  peoj^le's  minds.  Sin  now-a-days  is 
associated  with  breach  of  contract,  or  unfaithfulness,  both  being 
forms  of  selfishness.  However  imprudent  an  individual  may  be 
in  yielding  to  the  impulses  of  love,  there  is  no  sin  unless  some 
one  be  defrauded  thereby,  though,  of  course,  there  may  be  much 
inconvenience.  This  is  now  the  pojjular  and  general  sentiment 
on  the  subject,  and  humanity  has  gained  infinitely  in  happiness 
since  its  adoption.  Still,  I  can  imagine  a  nature  so  constituted 
'  as  to  feel  bitter  mortification  on  the  score  of  having  ignored 
the  judgment  of  those  who  were  entitled  to  be  taken  into  con- 
fidence,— a  mortification  that  would  constitute  repentance,  and 
make  a  second  and  like  defect  of  conduct  impossible." 

I  said  that  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  sentiment  of  mortifica- 
tion was  scarcely  possible,  except  in  one  who  had  previously 
regarded  himself  as  infallible.  That  as  I  read  life,  it  is  a  series 
of  lessons  from  experience  ;  by  its  very  constitution  involving 
error,  even  error  moral  as  well  as  intellectual. 

"  The  old  contest,"  he  said,  .manifestly  speaking  to  himself 
rather  than  to  me,  "  between  experience  and  intuition.  I  have 
taught  her  to  follow  heart  alone,  even  as  I  myself  have  follow- 
ed it,  and  naught  but  sorrow  has  come  of  it,  sorrow  to  both  of 
us." 

Here  the  clock  seemed  to  have  caught  his  eye,  for  he  said, 
looking  at  it, — 

"  There  will  be  no  more  signals  to-night.  I  thank  you  for 
having  given  me  your  company  thus  late.  To-morrow,  if  I  am 
not  making  too  great  a  demand  upon  you,  I  shall  have  matters 
of  greater  interest  to  impart  to  you.     I  quite  long  for  the  time 


392  BY  AND  BY. 

when  you  will  become  a  resident  with  us.  Avenil  says  it  will 
be  like  old  times  to  have  a  Wilmer  once  more  in  the  Triangle. 
I  wonder  whether  you  will  find  in  any  of  his  nieces  a  charm  to 
counteract  your  recent  impression. 

I  left  him  after  promising  to  return  fur  breakfast,  and  hav- 
ing a  sort  of  instinctive  conviction  that  he  knew  more  of  me 
than  he  had  said,  or  than  I  could  comprehend,  and  that  there 
was  a  relation  between  our  lives  scarcely  to  be  accounted  for  by 
the  fact  of  his  having  been  first  nursed  by  my  father  on  the 
iceberg.  His  conversation  also  perplexed  me.  Though  coherent 
in  itself,  it  seemed  to  vary  its  object,  and  point  sometimes  to 
himself,  sometimes  to  my  own  recent  experience,  and  some- 
times to  some  third  person  with  whom  his  mind  evidently  was 
much  occupied. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

Breakfast  was  already  prepared  when  I  arrived  at  the  Tri- 
angle next  morning.  But  my  host  was  engaged  in  an  adjoin- 
ing room,  and  I  had  leisure  to  look  round  the  apartment  into 
which  I  had  been  shown.  It  was  the  same  that  I  had  been  in 
over  night,  a  small  and  sumptuous  chamber,  evidently  a  favorite 
one,  to  judge  from  its  comfortable  home-like  aspect,  and  the 
character  of  its  conveniences  and  decorations. 

Being  an  author  and  an  artist,  my  first  glances  of  course  fell 
upon  the  books  on  the  tables,  and  the  paintings  on  the  walls. 
I  was  pleased  rather  than  surprised  to  find  among  the  former 
my  own  little  works.  My  feeling  w'as  one  of  blank  astonish- 
ment, when,  on  going  round  the  room,  I  found,  carefullj^  set  up 
upon  a  stand  by  themselves,  the  whole  of  the  originals  of  my 
published  drawings,  excepting  the  very  latest  ones. 

"While  I  was  gazing  in  wonder  at  them,  Christmas  Carol 
entered,  and  apologized  for  his  delay,  saj'ing  that  he  was  always 
at  the  mercy  of  his  telegraphs,  and  required  his  friends  to  make 


BY   AND  BY.  393 

allowance  for  him.  Perceiving  what  I  was  looking  at,  he 
smiled,  and  said  that  his  daughter  had  heen  so  much  pleased 
with  the  first  specimens  she  had  seen  of  that  style,  that  she  in- 
sisted on  purchasing  the  whole  of  the  series.  "  I  suspect  also," 
he  added,  "  that  she  was  a  little  piqued  by  the  artist's  refusal 
to  allow  his  name  to  be  made  known." 
"  Does  she  know  it  now  ?  "  I  asked. 

He  said,  "  No  ; "  and  in  answer  to  my  question  whether  she 
was  a  member  of  the  club  known  as  the  P.  M.s,  he  said  "  Yes/' 
but  that  she  rarely  availed  herself  of  her  membershiji,  being  of 
a  somewhat  too  retiring  and  domestic  disposition  to  feel  quite 
at  ease  in  the  Common  room  of  a  club.  "  Poor  Zoe,"  he  added, 
"  she  has  been  very  much  out  of  health  of  late,  and  has  caused 
me  great  anxiety.  I  should  like  to  introduce  my  dear  nurse's 
son  to  her.  Can  you  spare  yourself  to  me  to-morrow  for  the  day, 
to  run  down  to  my  place  in  Surrey  ?  She  is  staying  there  at 
present,  with  her  stepmother.  We  shall  find  there  on^  whose 
affection  for  your  father  will  make  him  overjoyed  to  see  you, — 
Bertie  Greathead." 

We  agreed  to  start  about  noon  ;  and  in  the  interval  I  was 
made  acquainted  with  so  much  of  his  history  and  j^ursuits  as 
enabled  me  to  comprehend  his  exact  position,  and  feel  that  he 
was  in  no  way  a  stranger  to  me.  I  was  introduced  also  to  the 
room  in  which  he  had  been  occupied  when  I  arrived.  It  was  a 
very  large  one,  and  entirely  taken  up  with  the  machinery 
whereby  he  controlled  the  various  works  he  had  in  hand.  In 
addition  to  numerous  telegraphs,  there  were  surveys  and  draw- 
ings of  various  portions  of  the  Sahara  and  the  Mediterranean 
coast  ;  with  tables  showing  the  exact  progress  of  the  work,  and 
the  areas  already  covered  with  water.  So  vivid  were  his  de- 
scriptions of  the  various  processes  and  details  that  I  could 
almost  fancy  myself  in  the  country  itself,  and  a  witness  of  his 
mighty  efforts  to  raise  half  a  continent  to  a  higher  stage  of 
development,  physical  and  moral. 

About  the  man  himself  there  was  a  simplicity  and  genuine- 
ness of  character  which  showed  him  to  be  greater  than  all  his 
works.     I  said  something  in  reference  to  the  tenets  of  my  old 


394  BY  AND  BY. 

sect, — to  the  effect  that  his  life  was  a  refutation  of  their  doc- 
trine that  the  world  was  so  much  more  fit  to  be  damned  than 
to  be  saved  that  only  supernatural  interposition  could  accom- 
plish any  improvement. 

He  replied  that  a  work  called  divine,  as  Creation,  if  any- 
thing, is  undoubtedly  entitled  to  be,  would  fall  verj-  far  short 
of  deserving  such  an  epithet  unless  it  contained  within  itself 
the  elements  of  its  own  improvement :  but  that,  for  his  j)art, 
he  had  a  strong  objection  to  the  use  of  such  words  as  divine 
and  siqjeniatural,  as  being  apt  to  mislead.  People  might  as 
well  talk  of  the  super-divine  origin  of  the  Deity,  as  of  the 
supernatural  origin  of  Nature. 

His  reference  to  his  second  wife  excited  in  me  unbounded 
astonishment.  Xot  that  I  had  the  slightest  right  to  indulge 
such  a  feeling,  but  the  whole  aspect  and  character  of  the  man 
were  so  strongly  suggestive  of  steadfast,  undying  constancy  to 
a  cherished  ideal,  that  I  covild  not  reconcile  myself  to  the  no- 
tion of  his  being  married  again.  And  I  soon  found  myself 
fancying  that  he  was  of  my  mind  in  the  matter,  and  had  not 
succeeded  in  reconciling  liimself  to  it,  now  that  it  had  been 
done. 

I  was  somewhat  disappointed  to  fiiid  that  our  excursion  into 
Surrey  was  to  be  made  by  railway.  I  hoped  to  have  gone  in 
the  famous  Ariel.  To  my  enquiry  whether  he  was  as  fond  of 
aerializing  as  formerly,  he  said  that  his  enjoyment  depended 
on  his  being  free  from  anxiety.  He  could  not  bear  to  burden 
the  light  airs  aloft  with  mortal  cares  and  sorrows.  "  The  soar- 
ing bird,"  he  said,  "  is  always  joyous,  whether  he  utter  himself 
in  song,  or  be  mute  in  ecstasy.  When  he  has  griefs  which  will 
not  be  left  behind,  he  refrains  from  making  the  ascent." 

His  longest  journeys,  however,  compelled  him  to  travel  as  of 
old,  in  his  Ariel.  He  was  expecting  to  make  one  shortly  to 
Africa.  The  works,  which  had  been  so  many  years  in  opera- 
tion, were  now  approaching  completion.  He  would  take  me 
with  him  to  see  the  first  reunion  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Sahara,  after  their  long  divorce.  Already  so  vast  a  quantity  of 
fresh  water  had  made  its  way  through  the  excavations  as  to 


BY  AND  BY.  39^^ 

form  several  considerable  lakes,  and  many  regrets  had  been  ex- 
pressed at  the  prospect  of  their  freshness  being  destroyed  by 
the  introduction  of  the  sea.  The  people  who  uttered  these 
regrets,  however,  had  no  conception  of  the  real  magnitude  of 
the  contemplated  results.  Already,  he  said,  had  the  elongated 
Shary,  in  its  issue  from  Lake  Tcliad,  formed  a  broad  and  deep 
channel  almost  into  the  heart  of  the  Sahara,  and  deposited 
myriads  of  acres  of  rich  alluvial  soil  at  a  level  somewhat  above 
that  which  would  be  reached  by  the  new  sea.  The  people  of 
Timbuctoo,  delighted  with  the  result  of  the  experiment,  had 
themselves  proposed  to  turn  the  surplus  waters  of  the  Niger 
into  the  desert.  Even  from  the  far  off  low-lying  coast  lands  of 
Senegambia  and  Guinea,  came  the  cry  : 

"  Take  our  surplus  waters,  and  relieve  us  of  the  perpetual 
curse  of  inundation  and  fever." 

The  emperor's  engineers  had  reported  that  their  portion  of 
the  work  was  fast  approaching  completion,  and  that  tlie  waters 
of  the  Mediterranean  and  Eed  Seas  would  soon  mingle  in  the 
bed  of  the  Desert.  In  the  meantime,  he  added,  the  work  of 
raising  the  people  of  Soudan  above  the  reach  of  ignorance  and 
superstition,  has  been  wondrously  facilitated  by  their  contem- 
plation of,  and  participation  in,  tlie  vast  physical  operations  in 
progress.  Superstition  being  the  product  of  man's  ignorance 
of  nature  and  of  its  capacity  for  being  subdued  and  controlled, 
the  sentiment  soon  vanishes  in  presence  of  a  Science  that 
teaches  him  that  he  is  himself  the  appointed  conqueror  of 
nature.  The  people  of  Central  Africa  are  now  well  advanced 
on  the  path  which  our  own  civilization  struck  out  for  itself. 

My  meeting  with  Bertie  Greathead,  whom  we  took  in  our 
way,  was  of  the  most  delightful  description.  The  kind-hearted 
old  man  seized  upon  every  point  about  me  that  served  to  re- 
mind him  of  my  father,  and  made  me  feel  at  once  that  my  life 
was  enriched  by  the  acquisition  of  another  genuine  friend. 
He  detained  Carol  for  some  minutes  after  I  had  parted  from 
him,  and  then  called  me  back  to  say  I  might  always  count  on  a 
home  and  a  welcome  whenever  I  chose  to  come  that  way,  which 
be  hoped  might  be  often. 


396  BY  AND  BY. 

On  reaching  our  destination,  Carol's  demeanor  indicated 
more  uneasiness  than  he  had  hitherto  betrayed.  As  it  certainly 
was  not  owing  to  any  ill  news  he  had  received  of  his  daughter 
from  Bertie,  I  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for  his  manifest  pre- 
occujjation  ; — unless,  indeed,  it  arose  from  the  recollection  of 
his  first  marriage  mingling  with  reflections  upon  the  second. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  his  domestic  history 
was  altogether  unknown  to  me.  That  his  second  choice  was  a 
good  one,  whatever  the  first,  might  have  been  fairly  augured 
from  the  handsome  presence  and  gracious  manner  of  the  lady 
who  met  us  at  the  door,  and  after  affectionately  embracing  him, 
welcomed  me,  with  an  admirably  proportioned  admixture  of 
precision  and  effusion.  If  in  this  first  meeting  there  was  any- 
thing tliat  jarred  on  me,  it  assuredly  was  not  on  the  side  of  the 
lady,  but  rather  on  that  of  her  husband,  whose  manner  struck 
me  as  colder  and  more  restrained  than  was  appropriate  either 
to  the  occasion  or  to  the  persons  concerned. 

"  Our  darling  Zoe,"  said  the  lady,  amiably  overlooking  all 
defects,  "  would  have  rejoiced  to  unite  her  greetings  with  mine, 
but  her  sad  health  causes  her  to  keep  much  aloof  from  society, 
— even  from  mine,  though  living  in  the  same  house.  I  do 
trust,  my  dear  Christmas,  that  your  visit  will  quicken  her 
spirits  somewhat." 

"  Where  is  she  ?  Is  she  well  enough  to  see  us  ?"  he  asked, 
in  a  tone  that  betrayed  no  intention  of  being  beguiled  into 
using  more  words  than  were  absolutely  necessary. 

"  She  is  in  her  own  apartments,  and,  of  course,  able  to  see 
her  father,"  replied  the  lady,  marking  the  last  word  with  a 
strong  emphasis. 

"  Then  I  will  ask  you,  Amelia,  to  entertain  Mr.  Wilmer, 
while  I  go  and  see  her.  He  is  an  author  and  an  artist,  and 
so  will  be  able  to  appreciate  your  descriptive  and  creative 
talents." 

Before  he  could  leave  the  room,  the  door  opened,  and  a  young 
lady  entered,  and,  running  up  to  Carol,  embraced  him  tenderly. 
She  wa«  tall  and  fair,  but  with  dark,  expressive  eyes,  and  a 
somewhat  Oriental  cast  of  countenance,,  and  about  nineteen 


BY  AND  BY.  397 

years  of  age.  Great  as  was  her  beauty,  it  struck  me  that  the 
illness  from  which  she  was  suffering  must  have  enhanced  it 
by  the  delicacy  it  imparted  to  her  aspect. 

Leading  her  towards  me,  her  father  said, — 

"  Zoe,  I  have  at  last  captured  the  artist  who  refused  to  give 
you  his  name,  and  brought  him  to  you,  to  be  properly  punished 
for  his  churlishness.  But  I  must  beg  you  to  deal  leniently 
with  him,  as  he  is  no  other  than  Lawrence  Wilmer,  the  son  of 
the  lad  who  first  nursed  your  father  when  on  the  iceberg." 

As  she  advanced  towards  me,  I  fairly  gasped.  I  had  not 
recognized  the  elder  lady, — her  stepmother ;  but  I  could  not 
be  wrong  in  identifying  Ziie  with  the  subject  of  my  dreams, 
poems,  and  pictures  in  Iceland. 

Zoe,  on  her  part,  regarded  me  with  a  look  of  almost  stupid 
wonderment,  for  which,  as  she  could  not  by  any  possibility 
have  recognized  me,  I  was  altogether  at  a  loss  to  account. 

Looking  round  in  my  bewilderment,  my  glance  chanced  to 
rest  upon  the  face  of  the  stepmother.  The  look  of  intense 
annoyance  which  I  there  beheld,  did  not  serve  to  interpret  to 
me  the  situation. 

Quickly  recovering  herself,  Amelia  (for  thus  I  shall  take  the 
liberty  of  styling  her  in  future)  said,  in  a  voice  but  little  cor- 
responding with  her  recent  expression  of  countenance,  for  it 
was  bland  to  a  degree  : 

"  Dearest  Zoe,  are  you  not  exceedingly  rash  to  venture  into 
the  presence  of  strangers  in  your  weak  state  ?  Do  be  guided 
by  me,  and  retire  to  your  own  apartments  until  we  are  alone. 
Pray  persuade  her,  Christmas,  to  take  my  advice  ?  " 

Neither  father  nor  daughter  took  any  notice  of  her  plead- 
ings ;  but  Zoe  came  up  close  to  me,  and,  taking  my  hand,  said : 

"  We  ought  to  have  been  friends  long  ago.  Please  let  me 
date  back  and  consider  that  we  were  so." 

Then  turning  to  her  father,  she  said,  still  holding  my  hand  : 

"Now,  papa,  darling,  I  am  going  to  take  off  my  new-foimd 
old  friend  to  talk  with  him  all  by  myself.  When  you  want  us, 
you  will  find  us  in  my  room." 

And  she  actually  led  me  away  without  suffering  me  to  raise 


398  BY  AND  BY. 

an  objection  against  such  abrupt  desertion  of  the  party.  I 
caught,  however,  a  glance  of  encouragement  from  her  father, 
upon  whose  face  there  was  a  curiously  mingled  look  of  appre- 
hension and  gratification. 

Slie  did  not  utter  a  vvord  until  we  had  arrived  at  her  own 
little  drawing-room,  and  I  followed  her  example.  She  told  me 
afterwards  that  she  liked  me  for  that,  as  any  other  man  would 
have  talked  all  the  way.  Entering  the  room,  she  led  me 
straight  up  to  a  picture-stand,  on  which  stood  some  drawings 
which  I  was  at  no  loss  to  recognize.  They  were  my  Iceland 
illustrations ;  one  of  them  representing  the  incident  of  my  be- 
holding her  out  on  the  floe,  making  wild  moan  to  the  ice-locked 
deep. 

"There!"  she  exclaimed,  pointing  to  the  stand,  "I  will  say 
nothing  to  you,  and  hear  nothing  from  you,  until  you  have 
explained  to  me  how  you  came  to  paint  those  pictures  and  write 
those  verses." 

Her  eager  look  as  she  said  this,  impressed  me  with  the  idea 
that  her  mind  was  still  suffering  from  the  shock  it  had  evi- 
dently received  before  her  visit  to  Iceland.  Doubtful  how  my 
answer  would  affect  her,  I  led  her  to  the  sofa,  and  made  her  sit 
down  before  I  satisfied  her  curiosity. 

"  I  was  in  Iceland,"  I  said,  "  at  the  same  time  that  you  were 
there." 

"  Then  you  saw  me  go  out  upon  the  ice-field  to  drown  my- 
self, and  come  back  without  having  done  so  because  I  couldn't 
find  a  hole?" 

"  I  must  ask  your  pardon,"  I  returned,  "  for  the  liberty  I 
have  taken  in  representing  a  scene  which  concerned  you.  Had 
it  occurred  to  me  that  it  would  ever  be  recognized  by  one  to 
whom  it  might  give  pain,  nothing  would  have  induced  me  to 
take  it." 

"  You  mistake  me,"  she  said.  "  Tell  me  how  much  you  know 
about  me  ?  " 

"I  know  nothing  but  what  my  own  eyes  showed  me  in  Ice- 
land,— that  you  were  good,  and  lovely,  and  yet  unhappy ;  and 
what  I  have  learnt  to-day, — that  you  are  the  daughter  of  the 


BT  AND  BY.  399 

most  admirable  of  men,  and  one  for  whom.I  ouglit  to  have  an 
hereditary  friendship." 

"  You  may  add,  and  the  step-daughter  and  sister-in-law  of  a 
white  demon." 

"What  !     You  are  married!  "  I  exclaimed. 

''Yes,"  she  replied,  sadly.  "I  was  in  too  great  a  hurry.  But 
I  am  going  to  be  unmarried.  My  heart  has  no  place  for  the 
false.  Oh,  what  a  fool  I  have  been  !  Even  my  father  does  not 
know  all,  or  nearly  all.  He  has  brought  you  to  me  to  be  my 
old  friend.  Your  works  revealed  you  to  me  as  a  friend  who 
knew  and  understood  me  long  before  we  met.  Now  that  we 
have  met,  I  have  with  you  all  the  confidence  of  old  friendship." 

I  pressed  her  hand  for  a  moment,  partly  in  order  to  assure 
her  of  my  sympathy,  and  partly  to  calm  her  excitement ;  for  I 
felt  that  she  was  not  altogether  herself.  But  I  kept  silence. 
Presently  she  continued, — 

"  You  cannot  imagine  the  relief  it  is  to  me  to  find  one  who 
can  sympathize  without  chattering.  Oh,  that  woman !  with 
her  sharp-cut  lips  and  careful  elocution  !  How  could  my  father 
have  been  so  blinded  to  her  character!  But  he  is  not  a  man  of 
the  world, — I  mean  of  this  world ;  and  her  art  was  supreme. 
She  got  tired  of  practising  it  when  married ;  or,  rather,  it  Avas 
that  she  found  it  impossible  to  be  a  hypocrite  every  hour  and 
moment,  and  marriage  is  such  a  revealer.  But  I  am  afraid  it 
was  all  my  doing.  I  wished  him  to  marry  her.  Her  kindness 
to  me  was  so  artfully  contrived,  that  neither  of  us  saw  through 
it  until  the  mischief  was  done.  There  was  aJ  ways  something 
about  her  that  jarred  on  us,  though." 

Not  knowing  what  to  say,  I  said  nothing,  but  felt  that  her 
antipathy,  whatever  its  object  or  its  justice,  was  already  shared 
by  me. 

"Nothing  can  give  me  back  what  I  have  lost,"  she  continued, 
"or  remove  from  my  life  the  evil  flavor  of  the  past.  Personally 
I  shall  be  free,  on  that  I  am  resolved,  and  my  father  will  not 
refuse  his  consent,  when  he  hears  what  I  have  to  tell  him,  much 
as  he  hates  divorces  for  any.  The  law  allows  divorce  to  those 
who  are  married  under  a  false  pretence.     But  how  will  it  be  ■ 


400  BY  AND   nV. 

with  him  ?  It  is  true  that  there  is  virtually  a  separation  he- 
tween  them,  but  T  doubt  whether  even  her  vileness  will  suffice 
to  reconcile  him  to  a  divorce  for  himself  ? 

"  What !  is  she  not  true  to  him  ?  " 

"  True  ?  Oh,  yes,  she  is  true  to  him,  with  all  the  consitancy 
of  a  cold,  hard  nature,  scheming  ever  for  its  own  ends.  Stay, 
you  are  Artist,  and  therefore  Observer.  Did  you  notice  the 
color  of  her  complexion  and  hair  ?  " 

"  I  was  struck  by  their  amazing  clearness  and  brilliancy,  but 
scarcely  had  time  to  note  more." 

"Do  you  attach  any  importance  to  coloring,  in  relation  to 
character  ?  " 

"Yes,  indeed.  The  addition  or  subtraction  of  a  warm  tint 
often  makes  all  the  difference  between  a  true  and  kind  lieart, 
and  a  false  and  selfish  one."  And  as  I  spoke,  I  glanced 
significantly  at  her  hair,  which  was  of  the  warmest  brown  and 
gold. 

"Well,  this  woman  has  the  cold  white  hue  that  belongs  to 
the  latter,  in  her  yellow  metallic  hair  and  clear  skin.  Oh  !  the 
spectroscopists  must  be  right,  when  they  say  that  races  and 
temperaments  vary  according  to  the  metals  which  enter  into 
their  composition.  For  I  am  sure  that  an  analysis  of  Amelia 
would  reveal  very  strongly  the  lines  indicating  the  presence  of 
tin  and  copper,  or  whatever  may  be  the  constituents  of  brass. 
My  mother  had  the  rich  warm  auburn,  though  much  lighter 
than  mine.  I  know  little  of  her,  save  that  she  had  been  reared 
in  tropical  Africa,  and  possessed  a  temperament  so  ardent  and 
impulsive,  that  she  found  it  impossible  to  tone  herself  down  to 
civilization-point.  I  have  been  inclined  to  think  that  it  was 
the  very  contrast  that  led  my  father  to  make  this  last  selection. 
For  I  know  he  had  much  unhappiness  in  the  first." 

"  Then  his  second  marriage  was  scarcely  one  of  mere  affec- 
tion ?  " 

"  He  thought  it  was  on  her  side,  so  well  did  she  play  her 
part.  But  he  was  as  much  influenced  by  gratitude,  and  con- 
sideration for  me,  as  by  any  thought  of  himself.  Oh,  how  I 
hate  all  the  kindness  she  showed  me,  when  1  think  of  the  cal- 
culating spirit  which  jirompted  it." 


BY   AND  BY.  401 

By  the  time  we  finished  talking,  I  understood  that  Zoe  and 
her  father  had  been  betrayed  into  alliances  with  Amelia  Bliss 
and  her  brother  George,  who  was  much  under  her  influence. 
The  plan  had  been  for  the  lady  to  ingratiate  herself  with  Carol, 
by  displaying  such  affection  for  -Zoe,  and  such  exquisite  pro- 
priety of  sentiment  and  manner,  that  he  should  think  he  could 
not  entrust  his  daughter's  education  and  introduction  to  better 
hands.  During  Zoe's  childhood,  Amelia  had  lived  much  at  the 
house  in  Surrey,  and  at  length,  with  well-feigned  reluctance, 
and  solely  she  declared  for  the  sake  of  her  darling  charge,  con- 
sented to  become  her  step-mother.  Even  with  the  attainment 
of  this  great  end,  she  did  not  at  once  throw  off  the  mask,  but 
waited  until  Zoe's  affections  had  been  won  by  her  brother,  and 
a  marriage  actually  contracted.  This  latter  event  had  taken 
place  in  Carol's  absence  in  Africa,  and  without  his  knowledge 
or  expectation,  Zoe's  feelings  being  worked  upon  by  the  brother 
and  sister  until  they  were  beyond  the  control  of  her  judgment. 
It  was,  however,  only  on  receiving  a  message  in  approbation, 
purporting  to  come  from  her  father,  whom  she  worshipped,  that 
she  finally  consented.  The  airn  of  all  this  scheming  was,  of 
course,  Carol's  wealth.  Having  secured,  so  far  as  was  possible, 
a  claim  upon  this,  their  caution  relaxed.  Zoe  perceived  that 
she  was  not  loved  for  her  own  sake,  and  Carol  found  that  the 
fair  exterior  and  plausible  demeanor  of  his  wife  were  but  masks 
to  a  hard  and  insincere  nature.  The  first  indication  she  gave 
of  being  other  than  she  had  hitherto  appeared,  was  her  reckless 
disregard  of  accuracy  in  ordinary  conversation.  To  such  a 
degree  did  she  learn  to  carry  this  fault,  that  it  was,  I  have 
heard,  no  rare  thing  for  lier  audience  to  gaze  from  her  to  each 
other  in  wonderment,  as  with  precise  verbiage  and  ostentatious 
affability  she  poured  forth  utterances  of  which  the  falsehood 
was  too  apparent  to  be  glossed  over  by  any  other  term. 

Indeed,  she  seemed  at  length  to  have  no  other  conception  of 
conversation  than  as  a  vehicle  for  boasting ;  and,  regarding  the 
slightest  statement  made  by  another  as  intended  for  a  boast, 
she  invariably  endeavored  in  her  replies' to  cap  what  had  been 
said. 

26 


402  BY  AXD  BY. 

To  complete  my  sketch,  and  dwell  no  longer  than  necessary 
upon  a  hateful  theme,  I  may  here  add  that,  as  the  love  of  dis- 
play grew  with  the  possession  of  means  to  indulge  it,  there  was 
no  department  of  life  in  which  she  did  not  endeavor  to  outvie 
all  who  came  into  contact  with  her.  The  range  and  assurance 
of  her  conversation  demonstrated  her  pretensions  to  universal 
knowledge ;  and  no  matter  what  the  eminence  of  the  scholar 
who  ventured  to  correct  her  blunders,  the  attempt  invariably 
terminated  in  a  triumph  for  her,  achieved  by  sheer  force  of 
asserrion.  So  confident  was  she  of  the  perfection  of  her  own 
wit,  that  she  allowed  none  of  her  attempts  at  humor  to  pass 
without  being  repeated  until  not  a  person  present  could  escape 
knowing  them  by  heart. 

Her  husband,  after  his  first  shock  of  amazement  at  the  mani- 
festation of  these  oppressive  characteristics,  strove  hard  to  be 
blind  and  deaf  to  them.  Observing  with  more  pain  than  sur- 
prise the  gradual  withdrawal  of  his  acqaintances,  and  even  of 
his  friends,  from  any  society  in  which  she  was  present,  he  en- 
deavored to  show  her  that  such  displays,  even  of  knowledge, 
would  be  in  the  worst  possible  taste  ;  but  that  when  they  were 
displays  of  ignorance,  they  were  utterly  intolerable  to  a  refined 
and  educated  society.  Her  way  of  taking  the  rebuke  revealed 
an  innate  vulgarity  of  soul  that  altogether  sickened  him  ;  and 
in  regard  to  anj'thing  that  could  be  brought  within  the  cate- 
gory of  mere  taste,  he  never  repeated  the  experiment.  His 
next  remonstrance  was  evoked  by  her  habit  of  indulging  in 
utterances  of  the  severest  uncharity  against  any  person  whose 
reported  conduct  appeared  to  her  to  contain  an  element  of  am- 
biguit}".  It  was  with  every  nerve  of  his  moral  nature  quivering 
with  indignation,  that  he  listened  as  she  picked  the  characters 
of  people  to  pieces,  and  ascribed  bad  motives  for  their  conduct, 
or  scoffed  at  all  notions  of  mercy  and  forgiveness,  even  in  cases 
where  errors  had  been  atoned  for  by  years  of  repentance  and 
well-doing.  It  w^as  only  when  no  longer  able  to  bear  the  inflic- 
tion, that  he  exclaimed, — 

"  Silence,  woman !  Do  not  further  blaspheme  God's  creatures 
by  finding  only  evil  in  them.     Are  you  so  conscious  of  perfect 


BY  AND  BY.  ^  403 

rectitude  in  your  own  every  thought,  word,  and  deed,  as  to  be 
secure  in  condemning  all  others  ?  " 

"I  am  sorry,"  she  replied,  "to  find  that  you  do  not  appreciate 
a  pure  and  a  faithful  wife  too  well  to  address  her  in  that  strain. 
I  will  retire  to  my  own  apartment  and  leave  you  to  your  reflec- 
tions. I  cannot  be  humiliated  by  my  husband,  whom  I  onlj- 
consented  to  marry  for  his  own  sake,  and  that  of  his — his — dear 
child.  Oh !  that  I  had  retained  my  independence."  And  here 
she  put  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes  and  sobbed,  delicately. 

"Hear  me,"  he  said,  sternly,  "and  lay  to  heart  what  I  say. 
It  is  no  matter  for  boasting  to  have  the  physical  characteristic 
you  call  purit}^,  when  every  thought  and  word  is  an  outrage 
against  every  virtue  of  the  soul.  Infinitely  better  is  the  ardor 
of  the  fire  than  the  chastity  of  the  iceberg,  for  with  warmtli 
there  is  a  possibility  of  life ;  whereas,  of  the  disposition  you 
evince,  there  can  come  nought  but  utter  death.  My  whole 
moral  nature  rises  in  revolt  against  the  insincerity  and  hard- 
ness you  seem  to  delight  in  exhibiting.  Unless  you  amend,  we 
must  dwell  apart." 

It  required  all  the  knowledge  I  have  since  obtained  of  Carol's 
domestic  history,  to  make  me  understand  how  such  a  monstrous 
union  as  this  second  marriage  could  ever  come  about.  I  can 
see  now  how  that  the  very  nature  of  the  difference  between  ' 
poor  Nannie  and  this  woman  contributed  to  mislead  liim.  He 
had  no  fear  of  any  rude  impulsive  outbreak  on  the  part  of 
Amelia ;  or  of  anything  being  said  save  that  which  was  exactly 
the  proper  thing  to  suit  the  occasion.  Actress  at  heart,  cold, 
pitiless,  and  insincere, — many  a  less  fine,  less  suspicious  nature 
than  Christmas  Carol's  might  have  fallen  a  victim  to  her  wiles, 
even  without  undergoing  the  long  and  artfully  contrived  pro- 
cess of  ingratiation,  whereby  the  father  was  made  to  believe 
that  in  wedding  her  he  was  giving  as  mother  to  his  daughter 
one  thoroughly  proved  to  be  worthy  of  all  confidence  and  affec- 
tion. 

My  conversation  with  Zoe  was  terminated  by  the  entry  of 
her  father,  whose  face  bore  an  exceedingly  grave  expression. 
Zcie    commenced   pouring    out  her  thanks  to  him   for  having 


404  BY  AND  BY. 

brought  tlie  very  brother  that  she  needed,  but  stopped  on  ob- 
serving her  father's  face,  and  said  to  him  in  a  whisjier, — 

"  Has  she  been  telling  you  ?  " 

"My  dear  child,"  replied  Carol,  "I  have  come  to  take  you 
and  Lawrence  to  lunch.  I  hope  I  have  not  left  him  here  long 
enough  to  tire  3'ou." 

"  Oh  no,"  said  Zoe,  "he  is  just  what  I  want  my  friend  to  be. 
He  lets  me  talk  on  and  on  as  wildly  as  my  troublesome  head 
prompts  me  to  do.  And  when  he  speaks,  it  is  all  so  natural 
and  simple  that  it  does  not  tire  me  in  the  least.  So  different 
from  Amelia's  fatiguing  way." 

On  reaching  the  luncheon  room  we  were  received  with  a 
glance  of  the  keenest  scrutiuj^;  but  the  voice  and  manner  re- 
laxed not  a  particle  of  their  ordinary  careful  graciousness.  In 
consequence  of  Zoe's  remarks  I  paid  particular  heed  to  her 
stepmother's  complexion,  •  and  was  startled  at  noting  the  ac- 
curacy with  which  she  had,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  detected  the 
secret  of  that  lady's  character.  Probably  the  marvellous  con- 
trast between  her  own  coloring  and  that  of  her  foe,  had 
unconsciously  suggested  the  hypothesis.  Zoe  had,  in  addition 
to  the  pure  auburn  of  her  mother,  just  sufficient  infusion  of  her 
father's  darker  blood  to  give  a  rich  Oriental  shade  to  her  whole 
complexion.  Her  hair,  as  I  have  said,  had  a  basis  of  gold,  but 
verged  on  a  deep  warm  brown ;  a  hue  which  indicated  a  tem- 
perament that  required  all  the  larger  brain  she  had  derived 
from  her  father  to  balance  the  mighty  impulses  of  her  heart. 
She  was  manifestly  of  a  rich  and  rooviy  nature  ;  and  incapable 
of  a  petty  action  or  thought. 

Amelia,  on  the  other  hand,  had  the  aspect  of  one  from  whose 
veins  all  the  blood  has  been  drawn,  and  whose  vitality  is 
nourished  only  by  a  cold  colorless  lymph.  Pondering  on  this 
peculiarity  as  we  sat  at  table,  and  comparing  the  lady's  manner 
with  the  account  I  had  just  heard  of  her  character,  I  was  sud- 
denly struck  by  a  certain  look  about  her  which  at  once  suggested 
the  idea  that,  though  whiter  of  complexion  than  the  Whites 
themselves,  her  blood  was  not  purely  white,  but  contained  a 
dark  infusion,  probably  of  Hindoo  or  African. 


BY  AND  BY.  405 

Observing  her  closely,  with  this  notion  in  my  mind,  I  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  she  was,  either  nearly  or  remotely,  of 
Eurasian  descent,  that  is,  a  cross  between  an  European  and  an 
Asiatic.  If  this  was  the  case,  all  was  accounted  for ;  and  Carol 
had  brought  his  misfortune  upon  himself,  by  failing  to  ascertain 
the  breed  with  which  he  was  allying  himself. 

The  more  I  dwelt  uj^on  the  characteristics  of  his  wife,  as  de- 
scribed to  me  by  Zoe,  the  more  did  I  recognize  the  identity 
between  them,  and  those  which  mark  the  race  of  half-castes 
that  owes  its  origin  to  our  ancient  rule  in  India.  The  physical 
beauty  and  moral  deficiency  which  are  too  apt  to  combine  in 
persons  thus  derived,  seemed  to  have  united  their  extremes  in 
the  specimen  before  me.  When  once  I  had  arrived  at  my 
hypothesis,  every  word,  look  and  gesture  served  to  confirm  it. 
There  was  the  cold  eye,  the  hard,  precise  intonation,  the  watch- 
ful glance,  the  keen  ear,  the  fawning  flattering  tongue,  the 
head  so  flat  at  the  top  as  to  indicate  the  utter  absence  of  a 
moral  sense,  but  having  in  front  strongly  developed  faculties  of 
perception  and  imitation,  and  at  the  rear  all  its  cajiacity  for 
love  centered  on  self,  and  perhaps  on  one  of  its  own  kind,  but 
the  latter  through  habit  of  association  rather  than  through 
tenderness  or  affinity  of  character. 

This,  as  I  came  soon  to  learn,  was  the  nature  of  the  bond 
between  Amelia  and  her  brother.  He  was  the  sole  being, 
beside  herself,  for  whom  she  cared  ;  and  their  connection  with 
the  Carols  was  the  result  of  a  carefully  planned  and  well  execu- 
ted conspiracy.  The  sister  had,  by  arts  already  indicated, 
gained  their  entire  confidence  for  herself.  The  brother  was 
regarded  by  Carol  with  distrust,  which,  out  of  regard  for  his 
wife,  he  refrained  from  communicating  to  his  daughter.  But 
his  absence  in  Africa  was  taken  advantage  of  by  both  brother 
and  sister,  to  effect  against  Zoe  what  in  former  times  would 
have  been  stigmatized  as  a  deliberate  seduction.  This  crime, 
as  an  offence  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  has  with  us  no  existence, 
each  sex  being,  under  their  altered  relations,  held  responsible 
for  its  own  act.  Morally,  however,  the  blame  rests  entirely 
upon  the  side  which  takes  advantage  of  the  inexperience,  and 


406  BY  AND  BY. 

warm  feeling,  and  lack  of  protection,  of  the  other,  to  obtain 
nnder  false  pretences  that  which  would  be  denied  were  the  facts 
fully  known. 

Zoe's  horror  on  discovering  that  she  had  been  deceived  and 
betrayed,  was  based  solely  in  her  own  moral  nature.  Her  un- 
ha|jpiness  on  this  score  was  sufficient  without  the  added  agony 
of  the  social  stigma  once  attached  to  the  hopeless  victim  of  the 
seducer's  arts.  Society  now-a-days  accords  to  a  girl  under  such 
circumstances,  either  a  passing  laugh  of  good-natured  ridicule, 
or  a  smile  of  kindh'  compassion,  and  bids  her  be  more  careful 
in  the  choice  of  her  next  lover.  Its  serious  reprobation  falls 
upon  the  man.  Thenceforth,  he  has  no  chance  of  getting  a 
decent  woman  to  accept  him.  The  sex  itself  avenges  its  be- 
trayed member.  The  fact  that  I  am  able  to  tell  and  publish 
this  history  of  Zoe's  first  connection,  without  doing  her  fair 
fame  the  slightest  injury,  will,  at  least  for  those  conversant 
Avith  social  history,  indicate  the  enormous  amelioration  the 
position  of  women  has  undergone. 

The  fact  that  Zoe  was  an  inmate  of  her  father's  house,  and 
dependent  upon  him,  imparted  to  her  betrayal  a  degree  of 
criminality  which  would  be  wanting  in  the  case  of  a  girl  occu- 
pying a  less  private  position.  A  woman  who  in  early  life  goes 
forth  from  the  parental  roof  to  earn  her  own  living  and  make 
her  own  home,  avows  thereb}'  her  readiness  to  take  her  chance 
in  the  conflict  of  wits,  and  an  offence  against  her  is  not 
regarded  by  society  with  the  same  degree  of  reprobation  as  if 
she  had  retained  the  inexperience  and  helplessness  incident  to 
home  nurture.  There  is  the  difference  that  exists  between  lur- 
ing a  lamb  from  the  fold  and  pursuing  wild  game. 

The  bitterness  of  Zoe's  feeling  had  been  aggravated  by  her 
father's  conduct  when  he  returned  from  Africa  to  find  his 
beloved  child  sacrificed  to  a  man  whom  he  deemed  altogether 
unworthy  of  her. 

"Could  3'ou  not  wait  for  my  return,"  he  asked,  "before  giving 
yourself  up  wholly  ?  " 

"Oh,  my  father,"  she  had  replied,  "I  could  wait,  but  he 
could  not.  They  told  me  you  approved.  I  believed  him  to  be 
good  ;  and  I — I — loved  him." 


BY  AND  BY.  407 

This  was  enough  for  the  tender  parent.  He  set  himself  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  Perhaps  after  all,  he  was  prejudiced,  and 
there  was  more  good  in  Zoe's  lover  than  he  had  allowed.  He 
would  ask  him  to  come  and  live  in  the  house,  and  give  him  a 
trial. 

The  test  of  constant  companionship  soon  settled  the  question 
for  Zoe  as  well  as  for  her  father.  George  Bliss  manifested  all 
the  evil  characteristics  of  his  sister,  with  this  addition, — he 
had  not  only  basely  treated  a  woman  with  whom  he  had  been 
previously  allied,  but  he  had  denied  that  any  such  connection 
had  existed. 

He  was  dismissed,  Amelia  vehemently  protesting  her  own 
innocence  of  any  intention  to  deceive,  though  owning  that  her 
regard  •  for  both  parties  had  led  her  to  desire  and  encourage 
their  union.  Zoe  perceived,  however,  that  the  statements 
which  had  been  made  to  herself  did  not  correspond  with  those 
made  to  her  father.  But  the  question — who  was  responsible 
for  the  forged  message  which  alone  had  procured  Zoe's  consent? 
— had  remained  undetermined.  Worshipping  her  father  as  she 
did,  the  slightest  hint  of  his  disapprobation  would  have  sufficed 
to  keep  her  from  yielding. 

In  their  anxiety  to  be  just  to  Amelia,  father  and  daughter 
had  somewhat  receded  from  their  position  of  hostility  and  dis- 
trust, and  encouraged  themselves  to  hope  that  the  recent  expe- 
riences would  have  a  beneficial  effect  upon  her  character.  It 
was  while  under  the  influence  of  this  reaction  that  Zoe  had 
made  the  trip  to  Iceland  with  her  stepmother,  during  the  sum- 
mer that  I  was  there.  Since  their  return,  Amelia's  evil  char- 
acteristics had  reasserted  their  sway,  with,  if  possible,  more 
than  the  old  intensity,  reducing  both  father  and  daughter  to 
despair. 

The  freedom  with  which  I  had  been  received  by  Zoe  was 
altogether  foreign  to  her  character.  Her  mind,  which  had 
never  recovered  from  its  first  shock,  had  just  been  excited, 
afresh  by  a  new  discovery,  \yhich  she  intended  on  that  very  day 
to  communicate  to  her  father.  She  had  been  dreading  the  effect 
the  intelligence  might  have  in  embittering  his  relations  with 


408  BY  AKD  BY. 

Amelia ;  and  eagerly  welcomed  in  me  one  whose  presence  might 
be  of  service.  She  had  a  twofold  justification,  she  said,  for  at 
once  trusting  me  wholly.  There  was  the  sympathy  already 
revealed  in  my  works ;  and  the  fact  that  her  father  had  never 
introduced  anyone  to  her  in  the  way  he  introduced  me.  His 
whole  demeanor  had  said  to  her,  "  Zoe,  he  is  one  of  ourselves. 
Recognize  in  him  a  long-lost  brother."  Even  long  afterwards, 
when  completely  restored  to  health,  she  wovild  have  it  that  I 
must  have  regarded  her  behavior  as  deficient  in  proper  reserve, 
and  it  required  no  little  art  on  my  part  to  soothe  the  distress 
she  suffered  on  this  score.  Indeed,  I  doubt  whether  it  was 
thoroughly  cured  until  I  had  recourse  to  a  somewhat  extreme 
remedy.     But  of  that  it  would  be  premature  to  speak  now. 

Amelia  had  hitherto,  as  I  have  said,  received  all  the  benefit 
of  the  doubt  entertained  as  to  her  complicity  in  her  brother's 
treachery.  By  Zoe's  discovery,  the  doubt  was  removed.  She 
had  overheard  in  the  garden  a  conversation  between  the  pair, 
which  convicted  the  sister  of  being  the  most  culpable  of  the 
two,  for  it  revealed  her  as  the  author  and  contriver  of  the  plot, 
and  forger  of  the  false  message.  Zoe  had  resolved  to  relate  the 
circumstance  to  her  father  on  that  very  afternoon.  It  had  been 
a  question  with  her  whether  she  should  do  so  privately,  or  in 
her  stepmother's  presence.  I  advised  the  former,  feeling  that 
children,  no  matter  of  what  age,  should  never  be  suffered  to 
witness  altercations,  or  even  discussions,  between  their  parents. 

My  advice  was  taken,  and  after  lunch — which  the  scarcely 
suppressed  excitement  of  Zoe,  the  anxiety  of  her  father,  who 
was  ignorant  of  the  cause  of  her  manner,  and  the  suspicious 
watchfulness  of  the  stepmother,  who  struck  me  as  looking  on 
me  as  a  possible  obstacle  to  her  brother's  rehabilitation,  made 
anything  but  a  cheerful  meal — Zoe  took  her  father  apart,  and 
left  me  alone  with  Amelia. 

I  found  myself  haunted  by  an  idea  which  kept  recurring  to 
me  with  increased  force,  namely,  that  Amelia  was  not  altogether 
a  stranger  to  me.  But  I  could  noti  recall  a  single  circumstance 
in  confirmation  of  it.     However,  we  began  to  talk. 

"The    Blisses   had    a    great    name    in  India,  once^"  I  said. 


BY  AND  BY.  409 

''You   are   probably  descended   from   the    same  distinguished 
family." 

I  wanted  to  obtain  an  admi^ssion  of  her  connection  with  that 
country,  with  a  view  to  verif3dng  my  theory  of  her  Eurasian 
origin ;  but  I  was  too  clever  and  overreached  myself.  My 
ascription  to  her  of  a  distingushed  ancestry  set  her  off  on  such 
a  flight  of  glorification  of  herself  and  parentage,  that  I  began  to 
feel  myself  in  the  presence  of  one  of  the  most  elevated  of  human 
lineage.  How  many  times  her  family  had  proved  the  salvation 
of  our  empire  in  Asia,  how  regal  the  blood  which  flowed  in  their 
veins,  how  vast  the  wealth  they  had  lavished  for  their  country's 
good,  how  wise  and  courageous  the  men,  how  beautiful  and 
good  the  women,  how  eagerly  sought  their  alliance  in  marriage, 
and  how  great  the  condescension  of  herself  and  her  brother 
in  consenting  to  associate  with  the  ordinary  folk  of  modern 
days, — on  these  and  numerous  other  topics  flight  soared  above 
flight  until  I  was  only  saved  from  being  overwhelmed  by  the 
augustness  of  the  presence  in  which  I  sat,  by  suddenly  recollect- 
ing that  there  was  no  necessity  for  believing  a  word  she  uttered. 
So  well  had  she  acted,  that  I  had  totally  forgotten  the  character 
Zoe  had  given  me  of  her.  But  now  this  came  to  me  in  all  its 
force,  needing  no  further  confirmation.  Christmas  Carol  mar- 
ried to  an  ingrained  liar !  There  could  be  no  greater  tribute  to 
her  skill  in  mendacity,  than  that  it  had  baffled  his  almost  preter- 
natural insight.  I  saw  now  the  significance  of  his  remark 
when  commending  me  to  her  to  be  entertained  by  her  creative 
and  descriptive  talents.  It  was  a  sarcasm !  Christmas  Carol 
become  sarcastic  !  Here  was  another  tribut'C  to  her  powers. 
She  had  turned  the  sweetest  of  natures  into  bitterness.  Triily 
he  was  right  when  he  said  that  she  revolted  his  whole  moral 
being.  Association  with  her  was  a  moral  suicide.  I  saw  but 
one  means  of  rescue  for  him.  Under  the  old  laws  that  would 
have  been  closed.  They  forbade  divorce  save  as  a  premium  on 
one  sort  of  vice.  Under  them  Carol  would  have  been  chained 
to  this  woman  "until  death  did  them  part,"  all,  forsooth, 
because  she  was  "  pure,"  or  because  he  was  so.  Away  with  a 
word  that  can  be  used  to  describe  two  things  so  infinitely  wide 


410  BY  AND  BY. 

asunder  as  tlie  respective  purities  of  these  two.  Worse  tliau 
•worthless  is  sucli  purity  of  hody  where  the  whole  nature  is  an 
incarnate  adul'.fry  with  all  the  powers  of  malignance.  Amelia 
knew  that  Carol  detested  the  notion  of  divorce,  and  that  the 
soul  of  Zoe  was  the  personification  of  constancy.  This  con- 
viction was -the  rock  upon  which  her  confidence  reposed. 

Of  course,  a  nature  like  hers  could  not  realize  its  own  exceed- 
ing hatefulness  in  Carol's  eyes,  any  more  than  Carol  could  all 
at  once  comprehend  the  extent  of  her  vileness.  She  was  too 
keen,  however,  not  to  he  conscious  of  the  gulf  hetween  them. 
But  she  consoled  herself  hy  the  reflection  that  in  case  the  worst 
happened  and  she  was  turned  adrift,  it  would  he  with  a  hand- 
some competence  to  continue  her  career  elsewhere.  A  man  in 
Carol's  jiosition,  and  of  his  character,  could  not,  she  argued, 
throw  over  one  who  had  held  such  relations  with  him,  on  any 
other  terms,  whatever  her  fault. 

A  message  summoned  me  to  Zoe's  room.  On  my  way,  I  met 
Carol,  who  was  going  to  take  my  place  in  the  conversation  with 
his  wife.  His  face  told  me  that  he  now  knew  all,  and  had 
taken  his  resolution.  His  words  charged  me  to  endeavor  to 
soothe  Zoe's  excitement. 


«     »mm     » 


CHAPTEE  V. 

The  same  eA'ening  Carol,  Zoe,  and  I  returned  to  London. 
On  the  way,  he  apologized  to  me  for  having  dragged  me  into 
his  domestic  affairs.  He  had  heen  taken  hy  surprise,  he  said, 
by  the  revelation  which  awaited  him ;  but  his  daughter's  dis- 
covery of  the  deliberate  imposition  which  had  been  practised 
upon  them,  and  of  her  step-mother's  share  it,  left  him  no  o^jtion 
but  to  act  at  once.  Of  course  the  scene  had  been  a  most  painful 
one.  For  the  first  time  the  wretched  Amelia  had  found  false- 
hood fail  her.     All  was  over  hetween  the   two  families.     He 


BY  AND  BY.  411 

had  pensioned  off  his  wife  and  his  daughter's  husband,  on  con- 
dition that  they  left  him  and  Zoe  absolutely  free,  and  never 
again  ventured  within  their  range. 

''And  now,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,"  he  said,  "I  thank 
God  that  he  has  made  divorce." 

Yet  he  presently  added, — 

'•  Had  I  thought  it  possible  I  could  save  her,  I  would  have 
continued  to  endure,  and  not  put  her  away  from  me.  For  a 
nature  genuine  and  true,  however  narrow  and  perverse,  I  could 
bear  all  things.  But  pharasaic  pretence  and  hollow  conven- 
tionalism, however  fair-seeming  outwardly,  revolt  my  whole 
soul." 

She  had  owned,  he  told  me  later,  that  but  for  her  conviction 
that  he  never  would  take  that  extreme  step,  she  would  not  have 
presumed  upon  his  forbearance,  but  would  have  continued  to 
act  her  adopted  character  to  the  end. 

She  even  had  the  effrontery  to  offer  him  at  parting  a  piece 
of  advice,  telling  him  to  be  sure  and  keep  her  successor  on  her 
good  behavior  by  making  the  connection  one  of  limited  liability 
only.  "We  women,"  she  had  said,  "who,  having  neither 
fortune  of  our  own,  nor  the  ability  or  inclination  to  earn  our 
own  living  by  industry,  are  dependent  upon  men,  are  obliged 
to  enact  characters  which  are  not  natural  to  us  ;  especially  with 
such  men  as  you,  my  dear  Christmas,  who  are  made  to  be 
cajoled.  For  we  have  no  moral  sense,  as  you  call  it,  of  our  own, 
or  at  least,  cannot  afford  to  keep  one ;  though  we  may  affect  to 
have  one,  and  even  to  be  guided  by  it,  in  imitation  of  you,  that 
is,  until  we  deem  it  safe  to  throw  off  the  mask.  Now  that  I 
have  been  so  foolish  as  to  lose  you  by  throwing  it  off  too 
completely,  I  suppose  I  shall  have  to  resume  it  for  a  while.  I 
must  not  let  my  next  success  intoxicate  me  in  the  same  way. 
Not  that  I  deem  myself,  or  my  brother,  to  have  failed  entirely. 
And  I  am  sure  you  do  not  grudge  our  arms  such  little  spoil  as 
they  have  won  for  us?" 

"Grudge  it  to  you!"  he  had  replied.  "  Oli,  no.  You  are 
fairly  entitled  to  every  shilling  of  it.  You  have  earned  it  hardly. 
Ah,  how  hardly !  far  more  so  than  either  of  you  know.  May 
it  prove  a  blessing  to  you !     Farewell." 


412  BY  AND  BY. 

Before  we  quitted  the  train,  tlie  notion  which  had  been 
haunting  me  about  Amelia,  made  itself  clear  to  me.  I  now 
recollected  that  she  had  in  early  life  been  a  member  of  the 
Remnant,  though  not  of  my  mother's  circle.  None  had  known 
wh}^  she  had  quitted  it;  but  the  gossip  about  her  had  implied 
that  her  perversion  was  due  to  her  failure  to  obtain  all  the  credit 
due  to  the  devoutness  of  her  demeanor.  The  character  she 
had  left  behind  was  that  of  being  a  mere  actress,  who  had  taken 
up  with  the  most  formal  ritual  for  the  sake  of  the  facilities  it 
gave  her  for  compensating  the  lack  of  sincere  piety  by  an 
ostentatious  parade  of  its  outward  appearance. 

On  my  telling  Carol  what  I  had  recollected  about  her,  he 
sJiid  that  she  had,  in  the  very  beginning  of  their  acquaintance, 
owned  to  him  that  she  had  abandoned  the  faith  in  which  she 
was  brought  up,  in  consequence  of  the  emptiness  and  unreality 
of  its  formalism  ;  and  claimed  his  sympathy  for  the  painful 
struggles  of  conscience  she  had  undergone, — a  sympathy  he  ^;ad 
unsuspectingly  accorded. 

"  Perhaps,  after  all,"  he  continued,  "  I  am  unduly  hard  upon 
her.  Had  she  been  reared  in  a  less  narrow  system,  she  might 
have  found  legitimate  scope  for  her  talents  as  a  professional 
actress.  Whereas,  under  a  regime  of  repression,  the  propensity 
to  falsehood  has  eaten  into  and  vitiated  her  whole  character." 

After  we  reached  the  Triangle,  Zoe  continued  to  be  so  pain- 
fully affected  that  her  father  bade  her  retire  at  once,  and  sent 
for  medical  aid.  He,  too,  was  much  depressed,  and  requested 
me  to  stay  with  him.  We  sat  up  together,  but  spoke  little ; 
a  word  now  and  then,  at  considerable  intervals.  He,  like  his 
daughter,  preferred  silent  sj-m-pathy  to  that  of  the  loquacious 
sort.  His  utterances,  when  he  did  speak,  showed  that  his  suffer- 
ing was  for  humanity,  not  for  himself. 

"  Two  hearts,  and  two  only,  have  I  specially  striven  to  attach 
to  myself,  and  redeem  by  love.  In  what  I  have  failed  I  know 
not.  Well,  well ;  better  to  think  the  fault  is  in  myself,  than 
condemn  humanity  utterly." 

I  ventured  to  suggest  that,  although  we  might  find  it  very 


BY  AND  BY.  .  413 

hard  to  admit  that  the  Supreme  may  have  an  ideal  for  us  which 
is  not  our  ideal  for  ourselves ;  yet,  with  so  many  types  in  the 
physical  world,  it  might  be  that  we  erred  in  demanding  that 
there  be  but  one  in  the  moral. 

"  Surely,"  he  replied,  musingly,  "  love  is  a  fire  that  ought  to 
be  able  to  fuse  and  assimilate  all." 

I  had  no  opinions  myself.  As  Artist,  my  love  had  been  for 
freedom  and  beauty.  And  on  such  an  occasion,  and  in  such  a 
presence,  I  should  not  have  propounded  opinions  if  I  had  been 
possessed  of  any.  The  sentiments  expressed  by  him  belonged 
to  the  category  of  feeling,  and  to  one  who  feels,  opinions  and 
arguments  are  impertinences.  Placed  as  I  was,  an  expression 
only  of  sympathy  was  fitting,  and  sympathy  might  well  be  ex- 
hibited in  following  the  train  of  thought  indicated  by  him.  So, 
not  in  answer  to  his  last  remark,  but  in  pursuance  of  it  I 
said, — 

"  Yet,  if  all  things  proceed  from  love,  it  would  seem  that 
love  must  really  be  the  source  even  of  the  differences  which 
lead  to  our  disappointments.  If  the  initial  and  final  stages 
of  being  belong  to  love,  harmony,  or  identity,  it  may  be 
necessary  that  the  intermediate  condition  involve  opposites  and 
antagonisms.  It  is  as  impossible  to  conceive  of  conscious  ex- 
istence without  differences  and  degrees,  as  of  a  whole  without 
parts,  or  life  without  motion.  And  if  opposites  of  physical 
nature,  why  not  of  moral  ?  In  objecting  to  the  essential  con- 
ditions of  life,  people  really  object  to  life  itself.  They  would 
have  the  fruit  without  the  flower,  or  the  flower  without  the 
plant,  or  the  plant  without  the  soil,  or  the  soil  without  the 
elements,  or  the  elements  without  the  activity  which  makes 
them  contend,  and  mingle,  and  fructify ;  in  short,  they  would 
have  results  without  processes." 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said,  "if  I  have  suffered  my  mind  to 
dwell  on  one  of  your  earlier  remarks,  instead  of  following  you 
throughout.  You  have  unawares  trodden  upon  the  heels  of  a 
mystery  communicated  to  me  many  years  ago,  in  one  of  my 
flights  into  the  Empyrean  : — that  with  spiritual  natures,  sex  is 
the  product  of  love,  not  the  reverse  as  in  the  merely  animal 


414  BY  AND  BY. 

world.  Without  entering  on  the  vexed  question,  whether  in 
our  own  case  the  individual  mind  precedes  and  forms  the  in- 
dividual body,  it  is  clear  that  what  I  have  said  must  be  the 
case,  if  the  absolute  mind  precedes  the  material  universe.  For, 
if  all  things  have  their  origin  in  universal  love,  the  sentiment 
of  love  must  have  existed  prior  to  the  manifestation  which  we 
call  sex." 

"  So  that  what  we  call  good  and  evil,"  I  suggested,  "  may  be 
as  male  and  female  to  each  other,  between  them  constituting 
and  producing  life." 

He  smiled  at  this,  and  enquired  to  which  category  I  assigned 
which  function  ;  but  I  confessed  myself  unable  to  offer  a  rule 
on  this  point,  and  said  that  probably  it  is  sometimes  one  and 
sometimes  the  other.  Only,  that  on  the  theory,  of  the  attraction 
of  opposites,  in  order  to  make  a  perfect  marriage  between  mor- 
tals, the  better  the  one  side  is,  the  worse  the  other  should  be. 
And  at  this  he  smiled  again — but  not,  it  seemed  to  me,  as  im- 
plj'ing  that  he  considered  what  I  had  said  to  be  altogether 
absurd — and  remarked  that  marriage  assumed  many  forms. 
There  were  marriages  of  intensification,  as  in-  the  spiritual 
world ;  marriages  of  completion,  as  in  the  ideal  world  ;  and 
marriages  of  correction,  or  discipline,  as  in  the  actual  world. 
And  here  he  sighed. 

Some  days  passed  before  Zoe  consented  to  see  me  again.  Her 
father  took  her  consent  as  a  sign  of  amendment.  The  excite- 
ment which  had  characterized  our  first  meeting,  and  imder 
whose  influence  she  had  so  readily  made  me  her  confidant,  had 
quite  passed  away.  In  her  present  phase  of  re-action,  she  took 
an  exaggerated  view  of  what  she  persisted  in  regarding  as  her 
unfeminine  forwardness,  and  expressed  herself  as  ashamed  to 
see  me.  I  sent  back  a  jocular  message,  saying  that  if  it  would 
put  her  more  at  ease  to  know  that  I  was  out  of  the  world,  I 
should  be  happy  to  do  her  the  service  of  quitting  it ;  but  that  I 
thought  it  a  better  plan  that  she  should  convince  me,  by  ocular 
proof,  of  the  extreme  propriety  of  her  demeanor  when  she  was 
quite  herself.     I  could  not,  however,  help  deriving  a  certain 


BY    AND  BY.  415 

gratififtation  from  her  self-banishment.  For  the  self-conscious- 
ness indicated  by  her  conduct  seemed  to  me  inconsistent  with  a 
merely  fraternal  sentiment. 

As  the  daughter  mended,  the  father  lost  ground.  Avenil 
urged  a  more  active  life.  His  body  suffered  through  his  mind. 
Let  him  occupy  his  mind  with  other  things,  and  all  would  soon 
be  well.  I  was  now  a  member  of  the  Triangle,  and  saw  much 
of  him.  I  sought  to  bring  him  down  to  the  Conversation  Hall 
in  the  evenings,  but  he  shrank  from  the  general  view.  To  me 
there  was  an  immense  delight  in  the  society  of  the  Hall.  The 
cultivated  intelligence,  broad  views,  and  kindly  spirit  which 
marked  it,  perpetually  suggested  to  me  a  contrast  with  the  sec- 
tarianism in  which  I  had  been  reared.  It  was  as  if  I  had 
escaped  from  the  stifling  confinement  and  gloom  of  a  vault,  into 
the  free  air  and  light  of  heaven.  It  seemed  so  strange  to  me 
to  find  Truth  regarded  as  the  sole  criterion  of  any  statement, 
and  not  its  agreement  with  the  tenets  of  a  sect. 

The  only  society  which  Christmas  Carol  would  receive  was 
that  of  a  few  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  and  this  in  his  own 
rooms.  Suddenly  he  announced  his  intention  of  taking  Zoe 
abroad  for  a  change.  When  I  heard  this  I  secretly  hoped  to 
be  allowed  to  form  one  of  the  party.  Either  divining  or  sharing 
my  wish,  he  said  that  he  hoped  on  some  future  tour  to  have  me 
with  him  ;  but  this  time  he  thought  he  was  best  consulting  the 
object  of  his  journey  by  taking  his  daughter  alone. 

I  thanked  him  for  his  thought  of  me  at  such  a  moment,  and 
said  that,  while  I  felt  toward  him  and  his  all  the  affection  a,nd 
confidence  which  result  ordinarily  only  from  a  life-long  associa- 
tion, I  sometimes  marvelled  at  the  existence  of  such  a  sentiment 
on  his  part. 

He  smiled,  and  said, — 

"1  have  known  you  longer  and  better  than  you  are  aware  of. 
Since  our  first  meeting,  in  the  Alberthalla,  I  have  never  lost 
sight  of  you.  I  know  your  faithfulness,  and  your  labor,  and 
your  patience,  and  how,  out  of  pure  tenderness  of  heart,  you 
strove  painfully  to  reconcile  two  hardly  compatible  duties, — • 


416  BT  AND  BY. 

your  duty  to  j^our  parent,  with  tliat  wliicli  you  owed  to  your 
OAvn  soul.  I  have  seen  you  tried,  and  found  you  true,  and  that 
before  ever  you  were  aware  that  any  eye  beheld  you,  save  that 
of  the  Everlasting  Conscience." 

"You  would  scarcely  award  me  the  credit  of  having  labored 
and  not  fainted,  if  you  knew  all,"  I  managed  to  say,  my  eyes 
swimming  and  voice  faltering,  not  less  at  his  words  than  at  the 
recollections  evoked  by  them. 

"I  know,"  he  said,  "and  regret  the  extremity  to  which  at  one 
time  you  were  brought.  It  was  owing  to  my  own  unparalleled 
engrossment  just  then,  that  I  suffered  you  nearly  to  slip  out  of 
my  reach." 

Here  he  rose,  and  going  to  a  cabinet,  took  out  a  sheet  of 
paper,  which  he  brought  and  placed  in  my  hands,  saying, — 

"  The  loss  of  this  saved  you.  Do  you  not  remember  that  it 
was  the  turning  point  of  your  fortune  ?  " 

Glancing  at  it,  I  found  it  was  the  rough  draft  of  the  adver- 
tisement my  desperation  had  prompted  me  to  draw  up,  and 
which,  I  now  perceived,  I  must  have  dropped  in  the  publishing 
oflSce. 

"  You  don't  look  at  the  other  side,"  he  remarked. 

Turning  it,  I  found  there  some  sentences  which  I  had  totally 
forgotten  having  written.  Sentences  which  showed  that,  whether 
speculatively  or  practically,  I  had  so  far  familiarized  myself 
with  the  idea  of  suicide,  as  to  sum  up  the  arguments  for  and 
against  it.  The  conclusion  then  come  to  was,  that  in  yielding 
to  the  temptation,  I  should  be  giving  my  mother  the  very  un- 
happiness  I  w'as  then  sacrificing  myself  to  spare  her. 

"  To  have  carried  out  the  project  there  contemplated,"  he 
said,  "  would  indeed  have  been  a  terrible  waste  of  your  time 
and  powers.  But  I  am  going  to  make  a  clean  breast  and  tell 
you  all,  even  though  you  may  resent  my  action  as  somewhat 
impertinent.  I  chanced  to  be  in  the  inner  room  when  you 
were  conversing  with  the  agent,  and  could  not  avoid  hearing 
your  indignant  rejection  of  his  suggestion  of  a  mercenary  mar- 
riage. Partly  to  spare  your  own  feeling,  I  would  not  let  you 
know  that  you  had  been  overheard.     I  had  always  felt  as  a 


BY  AND  BY.  417 

child  to  your  father,  and  in  turn  felt  as  a  father  to  his  child. 
This  must  be  my  excuse.  Zoe's  attraction  to  you  through  your 
work  Avas  altogether  spontaneous.  I  need  not  describe  my 
satisfaction  at  finding  who  it  was  that  had  excited  her  interest. 
Your  position  at  home  made  open  interference  impracticable. 
I  was  a  black  sheep  to  the  pietists  of  the  Remnant ;  and  to 
have  revealed  myself  then  as  your  friend,  would  have  been  to 
defeat  what  at  that  time  was  the  object  of  your  life.  In  all 
that  the  agent  did,  he  acted  for  me.  It  is  true  that  I  then 
considered  you  wrong  in  not  endeavoring  to  win  over  your 
mother  at  least  to  a  comprehension  of  your  principles  and 
motives;  for  I  thought  affection,  truthfulness,  and  sincerity 
such  as  yours  must  sooner  or  later  find  an  echo  in  every  human 
heart ;  most  of  all  in  that  of  your  own  parent.  My  own  ex- 
periences, however,  have  now  convinced  me  of  the  contrary,  and 
shown  me  that  you  reconciled,  in  the  only  way  possible  to  you, 
the  conflicting  claims  of  affection  and  of  faithfulness  to  your 
own  convictions.  You  and  I  alike  may  find  comfort  in  regard- 
ing such  absolute  incapacity  for  sympathy  as  a  species  of  insan- 
ity. There  is  an  insanity  which  comes  by  training,  as  well  as 
that  which  comes  by  nature ; — though  too  often  the  one  but 
supplements  the  other,  as  in  that  which  takes  the  form  of  a 
narrow  sectarianism.  You  see  I  speak  unreservedly  to  you, 
even  as  to  my  own  son.  Would  that  you  could  have  indeed 
occupied  that  place  !  " 

"  Is  it  too  late  ?  "  I  cried,  startled  out  of  my  cherished  secret 
by  this  utterance,  and  the  emotion  which  accompanied  it. 

"  Too  late  ?  Yes,  you,  are  fit  for  something  better  than  to  be 
(sacrificed  to  one  who  is  about " 

He  was  unable  to  finish.  His  voice  faltered,  and  tears  ran 
down  his  cheek. 

"  Great  Heavens  !  "  I  exclaimed,  divining  his  meaning.  "  I 
never  thoiight  of  that.  Poor,  poor,  darling,  how  terribly  she 
must  suffer  in  the  thought.'-' 

"You  think  that  but  for  that,"  he  said,  "you  might  have  re- 
ciprocated her  attraction  to  you  ?  " 

"  But  for  that ! "  I  cried.  "  Aye,  and  in  spite  of  that !  I 
27 


418  BY  AND  BY. 

meant  all  that  I  said  when  I  expressed  my  tolerance  for  the 
error  that  comes  through  excess  of  heart.  Do  not  breathe  a 
word  of  it  to  Zoe ;  but  suffer  me,  when  this  trouble  is  overpast, 
to  strive  to  win  her  affection,  and  convert  the  brother  she 
deems  me,  into  the  lover  she  deserves." 

He  looked  his  gratitude,  and  I  added, — 

"  Would  that  I  could  believe  it  would  comfort  her  to  know 
that  I,  at  least,  am  utterly  devoted  to  her." 

"Nothing  can  comfort  her  at  present,"  he  said,  "save  the 
assurance  that  she  is  not  despised  by  others  as  she  despises  her- 
self." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  great  work  approached  its  completion.  Already  were 
hundreds  of  square  miles  of  the  Sahara  covered  with  fresh 
water  which  had  found  its  way  from  beneath  through  the  exca- 
vations. The  admission  of  the  ocean  would  cover  thousands  of 
square  miles,  even  right  up  to  the  point  where  the  river  which 
issued  from  Lake  Tchad  was  bringing  down  its  rich  sedi- 
ment to  fertilize  the  shore  of  the  new  sea.  Careful  surveys 
had  been  made  to  ascertain  the  precise  limits  to  which  the 
i-nundation  would  rise,  and  all  populations  within  those  limits 
had  been  removed  to  a  safe  elevation.  So  broad  and  deep  was 
the  channel  by  which  the  water  was  to  enter,  that  the  spectacle 
of  its  firijt  admission  was  looked  forward  to  with  much  interest* 
and  curiosity.  Already  a  town  had  sprung  up  at  the  entrance, 
and  a  spacious  harbor  had  been  constructed  by  means  of  exten- 
sive breakwaters.  The  Emperor  of  Soudan,  mindful  of  his 
challenge  to  a  race  between  his  own  engineering  operations  and 
those  of  his  cousin,  had  confessed  himself  the  loser,  ascribing 
his  defeat  to  the  unexpected  hardness  of  the  rock  to  be  pierced. 
He  hoped,  however,  that  even  if  his  tunnel  could  not  be  ex- 
tended to  the  Red  Sea,  it  might  still  be  utilized  for  purposes 
of  irrigation. 


BY  AND  BY.  419 

The  rock  and  soil  left  to  serve  as  a  barrier  to  the  sea  until 
the  final  moment  of  admission,  were  so  cut  and  bored  as  to 
be  readily  carried  away  by  the  rush  and  deposited  in  the 
deeper  hollows  of  the  desert.  The  agency  whereby  the  last 
obstacle  was  to  be  removed  from  the  channel's  mouth,  con- 
sisted of  a  vast  system  of  mines,  which  were  to  be  exploded 
simultaneously. 

The  labor  of  supervising  the  final  preparations  had  been 
most  beneficial  to  Carol's  health.  He  appeared  to  his  friends 
to  be  once  more  himself.  Zoe,  too,  had  regained  much  of  her 
old  brightness  and  elasticity,  though  not  until  after  she  had 
passed  through  a  most  severe  ordeal. 

"VVe  went,  together  with  a  large  party  from  the  Triangle,  to 
the  opening  ceremony.  The  assemblage  of  vessels  and  notables 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  made  the  occasion  one  of  un- 
paralleled magnificence.  Of  course,  Christmas  Carol,  as  the 
projector  and  executor  of  the  scheme,  would  under  any  circum- 
stances have  been  the  most  conspicuous  j)ersonage  present. 
But  his  more  than  imperial  munificence  in  undertaking  and 
carrying  through  such  vast  operations  at  his  own  sole  cost,  and 
without  prospect  of  ulterior  gain  to  himself,  and  the  world-wide 
reputation  he  had  acquired  for  the  singular  benevolence,  sim- 
plicity, and  nobility  of  his  character  —  in  some  of  the  ruder 
countries  obtaining  for  him  the  credit  of  a  supernatural  origin 
— these,  not  to  reckon  his  personal  beauty  of  face  and  form, 
caused  him  to  be  the  one  person  whom  to  have  seen,  was  to 
have  seen  all,  and  to  have  missed,  was  to  have  missed  all. 

At  a  given  signal,  in  sight  of  the  multitudes  assembled  on 
land,  sea,  and  in  air,  the  mines  were  fired.  A  number  of 
mufiied  explosions  in  rapid  succession  was  then  heard,  and  the 
whole  mass  heaved  and  sank  and  rose  again,  like  the  surface  of 
a  boiling  fluid.  Then  from  myriads  of  pores  the  smoke  oozed 
slowly  out,  showing  that  every  particle  of  the  soil  was  loosened 
from  its  neighbor.  This  absence  of  coherence  in  the  mass  was 
presently  demonstrated  by  a  slight  movement  of  the  surface,  in 
the  direction  of  the  channel.  This  was  proof  that  the  experi- 
ment had  svicceeded ;    for  the   movement  was   caused  by  the 


420  BY  AND  BY. 

pressure  of  tlie  sea  against  tlie  mouth  of  the  channel.  A  few 
moments  more,  and  the  intervening  obstacles  had  been  swept 
away,  as  tlie  sea  rushed,  a  broad  and  mighty  stream,  through  the 
opening,  and  along  its  appointed  course,  towards  the  heart  of 
the  Sahara,  that  vast  region,  from  which  it  had  for  myriads  and 
myriads  of  ages  been  utterly  divorced,  but  with  which  now  it 
was  to  be  rejoined  in  a  happy  union  for  evermore ! 

The  success  of  the  enterprise  thus  far  being  ensured,  the 
Emperor  of  Soudan,  as  the  next  principal  personage  concerned, 
turned  to  Carol  and  tenderly  embraced  him,  placing  at  the 
same  time  a  magnificent  jewelled  chain  about  his  neck,  while 
salvos  of  artillery  rent  the  air. 

The  likeness  between  the  royal  cousins  was  undeniable ;  but, 
I  was  assured,  not  so  striking  as  it  had  been.  The  Emjjeror 
was  iniich  the  stouter  of  the  two,  and  his  countenance  bore  an 
expression  indicative  of  a  life  of  self-indulgence,  and  little 
calculated  to  win  trust.  At  least,  such  was  the  impression  it 
made  upon  me. 

Then  followed  an  outburst  of  music  from  bands  stationed  not 
only  on  the  earth  and  the  sea,  but  also  in  the  air,  their  com- 
bined harmonies  mingling  with  the  rush  of  the  waters  as  they 
hastened  towards  the  longing  desert  in  such  volume  as  to  sug- 
gest the  idea  that  the  level  of  the  ocean  itself  must  soon  be 
sensibly  lowered  ;  a  rush  that  would  continue  for  months,  until 
the  thirsty  sands  of  the  new  ocean-bed  were  satisfied,  and  could 
drink  no  more,  and  every  remote  nook  and  corner  of  the  desert 
filled  up  to  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean  itself. 

The  music  of  the  bands  then  ceased,  and  a  myriad  voices, 
chiefly  of  the  laborers  who  had  been  employed  on  the  works, 
commenced  pouring  forth  to  a  wild  melodious  chant,  the 
anthem, — 

"  Return,  oh  Sea  I  unto  thine  ancient  bed, 
Where  waits  thy  Desert  Bride, 
With  dust  bespread, 
And  parching  sand — 
Iler  fount  of  tears  all  dried — 
Waits  for  thy  moistening  hand 
To  cool  her  fevered  head. 

Return !  returu !  oh  Sea !  " 


BY   AND  BY.  421 

The  words  were  written  by  me  without  aixy  idea  of  their 
finding  publicity.  But  Carol  took  a  fancy  to  them,  and  having 
turned  them  into  Arabic,  and  had  them  set  to  music,  he  made 
their  performance  a  feature  in  the  proceedings  of  that  great 
day.  The  final  verse — that  lauding  the  hero  of  the  event — I 
ought  to  state,  was  added  surreptitiously,  and  took  him  entirely 
by  surprise.  The  whole  Avas  sung  with  vast  enthusiasm  ;  the 
blending  of  the  musical  rhythm  as  it  rose  and  fell,  with  the 
constant  rush  and  roar  of  the  flood,  producing  an  effect  alto- 
gether extraordinary. 

Even  with  night  the  music  did  not  cease.  The  whole  of  the 
parties  who  were  afloat  in  the  air,  had  made  an  excursion  down 
the  course  of  the  stream  to  witness  its  issue  from  the  channel, 
and  diffusion  over  the  low-lying  reaches  of  the  desert.  Miisic 
had  accompanied  us  all  the  way,  and  long  after  we  had  returned 
to  our  resting-place  and  lain  down  to  sleep,  it  might  be  heard 
in  the  air,  now  far  and  now  near,  now  high  and  now  low,  now 
singly  and  now  massed,  as  the  aerial  bands  flitted  to  and  fro, 
ever  maintaining  their  sweet  utterances,  careering  and  wheel- 
ing over  the  landscape  like  a  flight  of  tuneful  curlews. 

It  had  been  a  question  how  best  to  dispose  of  the  vast 
quantity  of  rock  and  soil  which  had  been  excavated ;  and  it 
was  decided  to  he.ap  it  in  a  mass  near  the  interior  end  of  the 
channel,  so  as  to  form  a  foundation  for  a  maritime  city.  This 
city,  it,  was  urged  by  the  assembled  magnates,  ought  to  be 
called  after  its  founder.  They  accordingly  fixed  upon  the 
name  it  now  bears,  which  will  serve  to  perpetuate  the  beloved 
memory  to  all  future  time. 

There  was  nothing  to  detain  us  longer  on  the  spot.  The  hot 
season  was  advancing,  and  Zoe  was  still  far  from  strong. 
Carol  invited  me  to  accompany  him  and  his  daughter  to  Swit- 
zerland, where  the  best  effects  might  be  expected  from  the 
mountain  airs,  and  where,  as  he  said,  I  should  find  fresh  scenes 
on  which  to  exercise  my  art. 


422  liY  AND  BY. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

High  up  on  the  slopes  of  the  Alps,  in  green  vales  em- 
bosomed amid  peaks,  passes,  and  glaciers,  inhaling  new  life 
with  every  breath,  and  new  vigor  with  every  step  of  our  daily 
rambles,  we  passed  the  happiest  days  it  had  been  my  lot  to 
know.  Carol  was  much  occupied  in  exainining  and  tabulating 
the  accounts  daily  received  from  various  points  in  the  Sahara  of 
the  rise  and  advance  of  the  waters.  And  I  worked  hard  at  my 
painting,  giving  meanwhile  lessons  to  Ztie,  who  had  insisted  ou 
learning  from  me. 

Thus  constantly  and  intimately  associated  with  her,  and 
witnessing  the  abounding  richness  and  fulness  of  her  nature,  I 
learnt  to  comprehend  and  a^jpreciate  the  impulse  which  prompts 
the  true  woman  to  rank  her  love  as  supreme  above  all  prudences 
and  conventions  whatsoever.  Her  soul  was  a  sea  which  but 
needed  some  fitting  shore  on  which  to  break  and  lavish  all  the 
blessings  of  its  ineffable  tenderness.  So  harmoniously  was  she 
constructed,  that  it  was  impossible  to  tell  whether  it  was  in 
heart  or  brain  that  her  ideas  and  impulses  had  their  origin. 
Thinking  and  feeling  were  with  her  an  identical  process.  In 
short,  in  every  respect  of  heart,  mind,  form  and  demeanor,  she 
was  all  that  I  could  wish  a  woman  to  be,  save  that  she  seemed 
to  be  utterly  unconscious  that  I  was  not  really  her  brother. 

Much  in  her  as  I  could  trace  of  her  father,  there  was  also 
much  for  which  he  could  not  be  considered  responsible.  Her 
coloring  of  character  as  well  as  complexion  showed  this.  She 
was  something  more  than  merely  the  feminine  of  himself,  a 
difference  not  attributable  to  difference  of  sex.  It  was  on  ni}^ 
telling  him  the  result  of  my  analysis  that  he  gave  me  the  his- 
tory of  her  mother.  I  then  clearly  saw  that  Zoe  was  the  due 
resultant  of  the  compounded  natures  of  her  parents. 

On  my  owning  to  him  the  disappointment  I  felt  at  her  ap- 
parent inaccessibility  to  anything  like  the  tender  feeling  I  en- 
tertained for  her,  he  bade  me  have  patience,  and  not  betray  my 


BT  AND  BY.  423 

l^assion  by  the  slightest  word  or  sign.  "  ITature,"  he  said,  "  is 
the  best  teacher  and  guide.  The  healing  of  a  wound  cannot 
be  hurried,  for  it  is  a  growth  that  is  required.  A  premature 
disclosure  might  jjut  all  back.  Nothing  can  be  done  at  present 
beyond  making  the  conditions  favorable  to  the  growth  we  de- 
sire." 

"  Making  the  conditions  favorable  to  the  growth  we  desire." 
The  more  I  pondered  over  this  utterance,  the  more  fully  was  the 
depth  of  the  philosophy  contained  in  it  revealed  to  me.  I  saw 
too,  that  it  comprised  the  ruling  principle  of  his  life.  Nothing 
about  him  was  too  insignificant  to  illustrate  it.  He  applied  it 
alike  to  the  regeneration  of  a  planet,  the  development  of  a  soul, 
and  the  cultivation  of  a  flower.  To  bring  out  the  latent  in- 
dwelling Deity  that  he  recognized  as  substanding  all  existence, 
was  for  him  the  sole  end  of  the  life  worth  living. 

The  phrase, — "background  of  Deity,"  was  used  by  him  one 
day,  as  resting  by  the  edge  of  a  glacier,  he  called  the  attention  of 
Zoe  and  myself  to  an  exquisite  little  flower,  which  was  flourish- 
ing there  in  spite,  apparently,  of  the  most  unfavorable  condi- 
tions of  chilling  ice  and  naked  rock. 

"  See,"  he  said,  "■  how  this  plant  seems  to  contradict  all  our 
theories  respecting  the  necessity  to  growth,  of  the  conditions 
favorable  to  it.  Can  you  account  for  its  flourishing  in  such  a 
spot,  Zoe  ?  " 

"  Why  should  it  not,"  she  replied,  somewhat  bitterly,  I  fan- 
cied, "  when  evil  flourishes  under  conditions  which  appear  to  us 
to  be  favorable  only  "to  good?" 

"Succeeding  so  well,  under  such  conditions,"  I  suggested, 
"  to  what  might  it  not  have  attained  under  more  favorable 
ones?  " 

"  Thus  do  the  life  and  character  of  each  of  us  ever  tinge  oui 
philosophy  !  "  said  Carol,  with  a  smile  of  sadness.  "But  yours, 
Lawrence,  is  not  in  perfect  accord  with  itself.  The  point  is  one 
which  no  man  cau  determine.  Who  knows  how  far  the  dis- 
cipline of  uncongenial  conditions  serves  to  produce  that  which 
is  best  in  us  ?  If  I  mistake  not,  you  once  admitted  as  much  to 
me." 


424  BY  AND  BY. 

I  said  that  certainly  I  had  found,  even  in  my  work  as  an 
artist,  a  liability  to  be  carried  in  a  direction  contrary  to  the 
influences  prevailing  at  the  moment.  For  instance,  it  Avas 
always  in  siimmer  that  I  succeeded  inmost  A-ividly representing 
the  phenomena  of  winter,  and  in  winter  those  of  summer.  It 
seemed  as  if  there  were  a  reaction  against  one's  actual  condi- 
tions. 

"The  ideal,"  he  said,  "is  more  to  you  than  the  actual,  and 
requires  the  force  of  contrasts  to  elucidate  it.  It  is  often  so  in 
life  and  character,  as  well  as  in  art.  Yet,  nevertheless,  and  in 
spite  of  all  anomalies,  it  is  our  duty  to  make  the  conditions  as 
favorable  as  possible  to  the  best,  even  though  we  know  they 
sometimes  will  fail  to  produce  the  best.  For  what  is  the  beauty 
of  this  very  flower  but  the  result  of  conditions  favorable  to  such 
beauty,  enjoyed  by  its  progenitors  near  or  remote?  And  what 
the  evil  which  Zoe  deprecates,  but  a  survival  from  times,  per- 
chance long  past,  of  the  effect  of  conditions  unfavorable  to 
good  ?  " 

"We  should  hardly  have  noticed  this  flower  had  we  found  it 
in  a  conservatory,"  observed  Zoe.  "  Instead  of  reigning  a  queen 
of  beauty  there,  it  would  be  but  a  humble  courtier." 

Something  suggested  to  me  the  ancient  class-feuds,  by  which, 
prior  to  the  Emancipation,  our  social  system  was  disfigured. 
And  I  made  a  remark  to  the  effect  that  if  the  elements  were 
possessed  of  sentiments  corresponding  to  those  of  humanity,  we 
might  find  the  soil,  the  moisture,  the  atmosphere,  and  the  light, 
grudging  the  flower  the  very  sweetness  and  beauty  which  it 
derived  from  them  ;  much  as  the  laboring  classes  used  to  indulge 
in  enmity  against  the  wealth,  culture,  and  refinement  which 
were  the  noblest  result  of  their  own  toil. 

"Add,"  said  Carol,  "chiefly  owing  to  the  selfishness  which 
once  governed  the  distribution  of  those  results.  Those  who  had 
the  power  took  all,  and  gave  back  nothing  beyond  what  they 
were  obliged.  A  veritable  Jacob's  ladder  has  been  man's 
ascent,  first  physical,  then  mental,  from  the  first  step  planted 
in  earth,  to  the  apex  piercing  the  clouds.  In  each  of  his  stages, 
— the    struggle  for  individual  existence,  the  organization  for 


BY  AND  BY.  425 

conquest  and  supremacy,  and  the  final  one  of  combination  for 
mutual  advantage,  such  as  the  conditions  so  always  have  been 
the  results.  It  is  when  the  parts  show  themselves  so  engrossed 
by  their  own  personal  interests,  as  they  deem  them,  as  to  be 
incapable  of  sympathizing  with  and  aiding  the  higher  destinies 
of  the  whole,  that  a  state  of  things  is  produced  which  contains 
the  elements  of  its  own  destruction.  That  is  my  definition  of 
evil." 

I  had  long  wished  to  know  precisely  what  form  the  Universe 
had  assumed  in  his  mind,  and  I  took  this  opportunity  to  make 
a  remark  which  led  him  to  give  expression  to  it. 

"  Whatever  the  state  or  stage  of  existence,"  he  said,  "  there 
must  still  be  a  mystery  recognizable  by  the  faculties  of  those 
who  are  in  that  stage.  The  ability  to  apprehend  such  mystery 
involves  the  passage  to  a  higher  class.  And  until  we  have 
such  ability,  we  are  always  liable  to  be  in  some  error  respecting 
the  things  which  lie  immediately  below  it.  My  view  of  the 
higher  phenomena  of  the  Universe  may  be  utterly  in  error, 
although  I  have  taken  into  account  all  the  facts  which  I  have 
been  able  to  find  in  those  phenomena,  and  tried  to  generalize 
from  them  with  an  unprejudiced  mind.  However,  for  the  pres- 
ent, this  is  where  I  stand.  Deity,  which  is  the  All,  has  put 
forth  out  of  himself,  as  it  were,  the  whole  substance  of  which 
the  Universe  is  composed,  withdrawing  himself  into  the  back- 
ground, and  leaving  each  vario-us  portion  to  the  control  of 
certain  unvarying  rules.  These  rules  constitute  the  Laws  of 
Nature.  Proceeding  through  an  infinity  of  stages,  these  por- 
tions gradually  attain  a  consistency  and  consolidation  which 
render  them  incapable  of  relapse  into  a  lower  stage. 

"That  is,  they  become,  as  individuals,  indestructible  and 
immortal.  But  to  be  this,  they  must  harmonize  in  their  char- 
acter and  emotions  with  the  great  Whole  from  which  they 
originally  sprang.  Failing  to  do  this,  by  reason  of  discordant 
self-engrossment,  they  prove  themselves  unfitted  to  endure,  and 
so  decompose  and  become  resolved  into  their  original  elements, 
their  constituents  remingling  with  the  surrounding  itniverse. 
It  is  thus  that  whatever  is  sufficiently  beautiful  and  good  con- 


426  BY  AND  BY. 

tinues,  by  force  of  its  own  attraction,  to  endure  and  grow ; 
while  that  which  is  obnoxious  becomes  dispersed,  and  vanishes 
by  force  of  its  own  inherent  antagonism  to  the  general  condi- 
tions of  existence.  I  like  thus  to  think  of  the  good  as  enduring 
for  ever,  and  of  the  evil  as  being  dissolved  and  recast  in  fresh 
moulds,  to  come  out  good  and  enduring  in  its  turn.  I  say,  I 
like  to  think  this.  I  cannot  prove  that  it  is  so.  Though  at 
present  I  see  nothing  that  is  inconsistent  with  its  being  so." 

I  ventured  to  remark  that,  at  any  rate,  he  had  determined 
for  himself  the  question  between  T'leism  and  Atheism  in  favor 
of  the  former. 

"Call  it  rather,"  he  said,  "the  question  whether  the  material 
with  which  infinity  was  originally  filled,  and  of  which,  tliere- 
fore,  the  universe  is  composed,  possessed  among  its  other  endow- 
ments faculties  corresponding  to  those  of  sensation,  conscious- 
ness, and  thought,  as  a  ivhole?  Yes,  I  do  so  decide  it,  at  least 
for  myself  ;  and  for  tliis  reason.  If  the  organized  and  individual 
portions  alone  were  capable  of  thought,  they  would  be  superior 
to  the  rest,  and  able  to  penetrate  its  mystery;  and  so,  a  part 
would  be  superior  to  the  whole.  But  the  existence  of  mystery 
incomprehensible  by  the  parts,  demonstrates  for  me  the  superi- 
ority of  the  Whole  in  all  qualities  possessed  by  those  parts.  It 
baffles  the  utmost  scrutiny  of  the  most  advanced  intelligence  of 
any  of  its  parts.  What  but  a  superior  intelligence  can  do  that  ? 
lUit,  beyond  these  or  other  reasons,  I  have  feelings, — feelings 
A\hich  compel  me  to  the  same  result.  It  is  a  necessity  of  my 
nature  to  personify  the  whole,  and  to  regard  tha  laws  of  nature 
as  but  the  thoughts  of  God.  But  I  am  not  therefore  unable  to 
comprehend  the  stand-point  of  those  who  deem  it  most  probable 
that,  as  in  the  individualized  part,  so  in  the  Universal  Whole, 
the  mechanical  and  automatic  should  precede  the  mental  and 
conscious.  Let  each  be  faithful  to  his  own  lights.  Only  the 
presumption  whicli  leads  men  to  dogmatize  is  utterly  condemned. 
Imagine  anyone  who  possessed  but  a  fractional  knowledge  of 
our  natures  and  circumstances,  claiming  dogmatically  to  defi]ie 
one  of  ourselves !  Methinks  we  should  resent  it  as  a  great 
liberty." 


BY  AND  BY.  427 

"  Ah  !  father,"  cried  Zoe,  "  this  flower,  j^retty  as  it  is,  will 
not  be  among  your  indestructibles.  See  !  it  is  drooping  already. 
And,  look!  liere  is  a  worm  at  the  core  eating  away  its  heart." 

As  she  said  this,  I  observed  his  whole  frame  shiver  as  with  a 
sudden  tremor. 

Walking  homewards  he  resumed  the  subject  of  conditions, 
saying,— 

"When  I  think  of  the  force  that  has  been  constantly  exerted 
through  mj'^riads  of  generations,  to  compel  men  to  hate  liberty, 
to  liate  each  other,  and  to  fear  the  light,  and  how  tremendous 
is  the  strength  of  hereditary  impressions  thus  accumulated,  I 
am  lost  in  wonder  at  the  marvellous  vitality  of  the  divine  spark 
witliin  us.  That  it  should  have  survived  those  ages  of  falsehood 
and  suppression,  is  to  me  the  standing  miracle  of  the  world. 
You  remember,  Lawrence,  our  first  meeting,  and  the  effect  your 
first  lesson  in  English  history  had  upon  you?  Well,  will  you 
believe  it?  there  was  a  time  when  one  of  England's  greatest 
and  most  trusted  Ministers  sought  to  conciliate  a  priesthood  by 
excluding  that  very  study  from  an  university  course.  The 
people  of  England  were  tlien  but  half  awake.  But  this  roused 
them  thoroughly.  ' Perish,' they  said,  'a  legion  of  ministers, 
whatever  our  debt  to  them,  sooner  than  thus  curtail  Knowledge 
and  subordinate  Truth  in  deference  to  that  old  serpent  of 
Sacerdotalism,  which  has  so  long  deceived  the  Earth.'  Ah! 
the}'  were  grand  times,  those  that  led  up  to  the  Emancipation. 
Of  all  the  past  periods  of  our  country's  history,  it  is  then  that 
I  should  have  chosen  to  live.  And  the  owls  and  bats  who  lived 
in  them  used  to  declaim  against  'the  decay  of  Faith!'" 

So  the  summer  came  and  passed. 


428  BY  AND  BY, 


CHAPTER   VIII. 


We  were  still  in  Switzerland,  when  the  ear  of  Carol,  ever 
on  the  alert  to  succor  or  to  save,  was  caught  by  a  cry  of  distress 
which  came  from  Egypt.  Famine  was  not  yet  actually  in  the 
land.  It  was  the  prospect  for  the  next  year  that  was  so  gloomy. 
July,  August,  had  come  and  gone,  and  the  Nile,  which  ought 
to  be  at  its  utmost  height  in  September,  had  scarcely  risen 
above  its  lowest  point;  and  the  lowest  point  that  year  had 
been  below  any  ever  before  known.  The  failure  was,  thus,  to 
an  extent  absolutely  unprecedented.  It  meant  starvation  to 
millions.  Already  were  the  superstitious  populace  crying  out 
that  it  was  sent  in  vengeance  for  the  attempt  to  redeem  the 
Sahara  from  its  ancient  curse.  That  the  judgment  was 
specially  intended  for  Egypt,  for  consenting  to  the  scheme  of 
her  hereditary  rival  and  foe,  the  ro^'al  house  of  Ab3'ssinia,  was 
manifest  from  the  fact  that  there  had  been  no  lack  of  rain  to 
swell  the  Upper  Nile  and  its  tributaries.  It  was  by  a  super- 
natural intervention  that  the  due  flow  of  the  river  had  been 
arrested. 

Sej)tember  past,  all  hope  vanished.  The  river  ought  to  have 
been  now  fast  subsiding  from  its  inundation.  From  the  parched 
plains  of  Egypt  and  Nubia,  teeming  with  their  millions,  rose 
such  a  cry  as  can  come  only  from  a  nation  which  sees  itself  on 
the  point  of  perishing.  The  heart  of  the  world  was  stirred; 
but  ere  its  hands  could  act,  a  mighty  aerial  fleet  dispatched  by 
Carol,  and  laden  with  food,  dropped  down,  as  heaven-sent,  into 
the  midst  of  the  now  starving  masses.  But  the  report,  again 
reiterated,  that  there  had  been  no  lack  of  rain  at  the  sources, 
induced  him  to  take  another  step.  He  dispatched  a  con- 
fidential scientific*  expedition  by  fast  aeromotive  to  ascertain 
the  truth  of  the  statement,  and  the  point  at  which,  if  true,  the 
river  ceased  to  fill  its  bed.  The  greatness  of  the  distance 
intervening  between  the  Nile  and  his  excavations  made  it 
utterly  impossible,  he  thought,  that  there  should  be  any  con- 


BY  AND  BY.  429 

nection  between  the  two  regions  to  account  for  the  river's 
failure.  Perhaps  some  accident  had  occurred  with  the  imperial 
operations  to  the  south.  The  engineers  had  some  time  since 
reported  that  they  had  tapped  several  springs,  the  water  from 
which  was  so  abundant  as  to  impede  their  operations.  The 
tone  of  the  Soudan,  and  especially  of  the  Abyssinian  press  at 
this  time,  was  so  menacing  and  even  exultant  in  respect  to  their 
ancient  enemy,  as  to  lead  Carol  to  make  strong  remonstrances 
to  the  Emperor,  and  to  represent  that  such  uncivilized  conduct 
seriously  imperilled  the  country's  prospects  of  admission  to  the 
Confederacy  of  Nations. 

The  report  brought  back  to  Carol  excited  his  utmost  alarm. 
His  agent  had  first  come  upon  the  river  at  Khartoom,  where 
the  clear  and  thick  Niles  join  to  form  the  great  river  of  Egypt. 
He  thought,  by  attacking  his  task  at  this  point,  to  ascertain 
which  branch  was  in  fault.  To  his  surprise  he  found  that  both 
branches  had  been  filled  to  their  usual  height,  so  that  the 
escape  must  be  at  some  point  lower  down.  On  seeking  to 
obtain  information,  he  found  himself  utterly  bafiled  by  the 
ignorance,  real  or  pretended,  of  the  people. 

Leaving  Khartoom,  he  next  dropped  down  upon  the  river  at 
the  point  where  it  is  joined  by  one  of  its  most  important 
branches,  the  Atbara, — about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  below 
Khartoom.  Here  he  found  the  natives  in  a  state  of  wonder 
and  alarm  at  the  extraordinary  aspect  of  things.  The  branch 
had  performed  its  duty  as  usual,  but  scarcely  any  water  had 
come  down  the  bed  of  the  main  stream.  The  people,  little 
advanced  in  civilization  or  intelligence  beyond  their  remote 
forefathers,  were  at  first  very  shy  of  their  interrogator ;  but, 
representing  himself  as  allied  to  the  food-commission  for 
relieving  the  distress  caused  by  the  drought,  he  gained  their 
confidence  sufficiently  to  learn  that  they  had  attempted  to 
ascend  the  river  in  order  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  its  drying  up, 
but  were  stopped  just  above  Shendy  by  a  party  of  troops  who 
said  that  the  government  had  issued  orders  prohibiting  all 
persons  from  approaching  the  river  beyond  that  point. 

Now,  between  Shendy  and  Halfay,  for  a  space  of  about  four- 


430  BY  AND  BY. 

teen  miles,  the  Nile  runs  in  a  deep  narrow  stream  through  a 
defile  formed  by  rocky  hills.  A  gloomy  place  is  this,  and  one 
which  the  people  of  the  country  care  little  to  visit.  The  pre- 
caution observed  in  respect  to  it,  therefore,  seemed  all  the  more 
strange  to  our  party  of  explorers.  The}^  knew  that  the  Emperor 
was  driving  a  tunnel  from  the  Sahara  to  the  Red  Sea,  but  its 
precise  course  had  not  been  made  known,  and  the  river's  bed 
was  here  at  least  a  thousand  feet  above  the  sea-level. 

Having  fixed  the  point  of  disappearance  within  a  space  of 
forty  or  fifty  miles,  and  finding  the  passage  barred,  the  ex- 
plorers determined  to  proceed  cautiously.  By  dint  of  liberal 
payment,  they  obtained  the  guidance  of  a  native  who  knew 
the  country  well.  Then  waiting  till  nightfall  before  starting, 
they  rose  to  a  height  sufficient  to  escape  being  seen,  and  j^ro- 
ceeded  slowly  up  the  river,  making  careful  observations  with 
their  glasses  as  they  went  along.  They  knew  that  about  the 
center  of  the  defile  was  one  of  the  cataracts  of  the  Nile — the 
sixth — and  for  the  sound  of  this  they  watched.  As  they  failed 
to  hear  it,  they  gradually  descended  towards  the  earth,  to  make 
sure  of  not  missing  it.  The  country  seemed  utterly  deserted, 
and  no  lights  or  other  signs  of  human  presence  were  to  be  seen. 
They  therefore  became  bolder,  and  approached  quite  close  to 
the  river.  They  thus  found  the  place  of  the  cataract ;  but  the 
amount  of  water  that  flowed  over  it  was  so  scanty  as  fully  to 
account  for  the  absence  of  the  expected  noise. 

Ascending  a  little  further,  a  glare  of  distant  lights  became 
visible.  Seeing  this,  they  rose  higher  in  the  air,  and  continu- 
ing their  course,  presently  heard  the  noise  as  of  a  camp,  and  a 
prolonged  roar  as  of  a  mighty  rush  of  waters,  but  with  a  more 
muffled  sound  than  would  be  made  by  a  cataract. 

Pausing  directly  over  the  spot,  they  were  able,  by  means  of 
the  lights  with  which  the  camp  was  freely  illuminated,  to  per- 
ceive what  was  taking  place  below.  The  guide  soon  detected 
a  change  in  the  aspect  of  the  spot.  His  description,  added  to 
the  testimony  of  their  own  eyes  and  ears,  explained  all.  But 
at  first  he  was  too  terrified  to  speak.  Those  below  were  demons, 
he  declared,  and  not  mortals ;   for  the}'^  had  dug  a  hole  in  the 


BY   AND  BY.  431 

world,  and  were  pouring  the  river  into  it !  A  further  inspec- 
tion made  it  appear  that  a  gigantic  dam  had  been  constructed 
slantways  across  the  gorge,  and  a  cutting  made  in  the  base  of 
the  mountain  on  the  western  bank,  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
dam,  and  that  through  this  cutting  the  river  was  flowing  into  a 
deep  hollow,  for  only  thus  could  they  account  for  the  roar  of 
its  passage. 

To  make  quite  sure,  they  descended  upon  the  river  at  a 
short  distance  above  the  camp.  Here  they  found  the  stream 
flowing  full  and  free  as  at  ordinary  times.  Then,  returning  to 
the  place  where  it  disappeared,  they  crossed  the  mountain,  in 
order  to  ascertain  whether  it  issued  on  the  other  side.  They 
even  went  to  some  distance,  but  found  no  traces  of  it.  A  final 
visit  of  inspection  was  then  made  to  the  place  of  disappearance, 
and  then  it  was  determined  to  turn  the  aeromotive  westwards ; 
for  Carol  had  instructed  the  leader,  in  case  he  found  himself  at 
a  loss,  to  proceed  to  the  camp  at  the  mouth  of  the  Imperial 
tunnel,  and  turn  his  wits  to  the  best  account.  He  gave  him  for 
this  purpose  the  exact  position,  in  latitude  and  longitude,  of 
the  spot  in  question.  First,  however,  they  returned  to  Shendy, 
and  set  down  their  guide,  charging  him,  for  the  present,  if 
possible,  to  hold  his  tongue. 

In  consequence  of  the  mists  which  covered  the  earth,  and 
extended  far  above  it,  they  were  compelled  to  rise  to  a  great 
height  in  order  to  ascertain  their  position  by  stellar  observa- 
tions. Having  at  length  arrived  over  the  spot  which  they 
were  seeking,  they  returned  towards  the  earth.  Here,  while 
still  far  up,  the  sounds  of  music  and  revelry  plainly  greeted 
their  approach ;  for  sounds  ascend  from  the  earth  far  more 
readily  than  they  descend  to  it.  The  camp  was  a  blaze  of  light. 
Coming  near,  they  saw  the  Imperial  banner  floating  above  a 
vast  pavilion.  The  sound  of  rushing  waters,  too,  rose  to  their 
ears.  Every  one  below  was  evidently  too  busily  engaged  in 
carousing  to  observe  them.  They  would  descend  close  to  the 
earth  and  make  sure,  before  reporting  to  their  employer. 

There  was  no  longer  room  for  doubt.  At  a  distance  below 
the  camp,  short,  yet  far  enough  to  be  safe,  and  a  little  to  the 


432  -BF  AND  BY. 

side  of  it,  where  the  ground  sloped  rapidly,  was  the  mouth  of 
an  enormous  tunnel,  and  from  it  issued  a  volume  of  water,  so 
vast  that  it  could  only  be  supplied  by  the  sea  or  a  great  river. 
To  ascertain  which  of  the  two,  it  was  necessary  only  to  taste  it. 
This  was  soon  done.  Letting  down  a  vessel,  they  drew  it  up 
filled.  The  water  was  muddy,  but  perfectly  fresh.  But,  listen, 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  chorus  yonder  carousers  are  sing- 
ing so  lustily  ?  The  words  are  Arabic,  and  the  music  is  rude. 
This  is  the  burden  of  their  song : — 

"  Rescued  froin  the  hands  of  robbers,  welcome  back,  0  Nile, 
to  thine  own  kindred.  No  longer  shall  Egypt  be  fat  with  the 
fat  of  Abyssinia,  but  fed  by  thee  the  desert  shall  rejoice ;  yea, 
the  Sahara  itself  shall  be  turned  into  a  garden!  Amen. 
Amen ! " 


CHAPTER  IX. 


On  learning  these  things,  Carol  dispatched  a  telegraphic 
message  to  the  Emperor  of  Soudan.     It  ran  thus : — 

"My  Cousin, — 

"  Relieve,  I  pray  thee,  my  inind,  which  is  sore  disturbed  by  an 
evil  dream  concerning  thee.  I  have  dreamt  that  thou  art  the 
cause  of  the  dire  calamity  which  has  befallen  thy  neighbors  the 
Egyptians,  in  that  thou  hast  turned  the  Nile  from  its  bed  into 
the  desert,  and  deprived  them  of  the  means  whereon  they  have 
ever  depended  for  their  subsistence.  Say  to  me,  if  thou  canst 
do  so  truly,  that  this  is  but  a  dream,  and  that  thou  art  not 
seeking  to  repay  thine  ancient  grudge  against  Egypt  by  return- 
ing evil  for  evil." 

This  was  the  answer  that  he  received : — 


BY  AND  BY.  433 

"Mt  Cousin, — 

"Peace  and  good-will  from  me  to  thee.  Truly  tliou  art  the 
best  of  dreamers  in  all  respects  save  one,  namely,  that  thy 
dreams  are  not  dreams,  but  realities.  Wliat  thou  sayest  is 
true.  The  Nile,  our  Nile,  has  at  length,  and  at  my  instigation, 
abandoned  the  strangers  whom  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years 
it  has  nourished  with  sustenance  drawn  from  us,  and  has 
returned  to  its  proper  allegiance.  A  wrong  is  not  less  a  wrong 
because  it  is  ancient.  What  I  have  done,  I  have  done  within 
my  own  territory,  and  in  furtherance  of  the  welfare  of  my  own 
people.  Every  rectification  of  an  established  wrong  produces 
suffering  for  a  time.  Yet  even  towards  mine  enemies  have  I 
acted  tenderly,  inasmuch  as  I  have  left  them  the  rich  and 
ample  streams  of  the  Atbara,  wherewith  by  judicious  contriv- 
ance they  can  sufficiently  water  their  lands.  But,  even  should 
this  old  and  evil  Egypt  utterly  fail  and  vanish,  there  will  not 
be  wanting  a  new  and  a  better  Egypt  to  take  its  place.  Already 
is  the  Nile  depositing  its  rich  soil  upon  the  sands  of  the  Sahara, 
and  flowing,  a  noble  river,  to  meet  the  sea  wherewith  thy  god- 
like hand  has  redeemed  and  gladdened  the  desert.  Come  when 
thou  canst  to 

Thy  lovixg  Cousin." 

"  This  takes  away  my  last  hope,"  he  said.  "  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  river  at  that  point  is  at  least  a  thousand  feet 
above  the  level  required  for  his  projected  tunnel  to  the  sea, 
I  had  been  trying  to  persuade  myself  that  he  had  yielded 
only  to  the  temptation  of  an  after-thought.  But  this  shows 
that  he  has  deceived  me  from  the  first."  And  he  handed  me 
the  message. 

"  The  plea  is  a  specious  one,"  I  said,  when  I  had  read  it ; 
"  but  I  suspect  the  Federal  Council  will  have  little  difficulty  in 
meeting  it,  whether  by  argument  or  by  force.  You  must  keep 
that  to  publish,  in  case  anyone  suspects  you  of  being  a  party 
to  the  scheme." 

"  Suspect  me ! "  he  cried.  "No,  no  !  I  may  at  least  trust  that 
I  am  above  suspicion.  But  your  first  thought  has  indicated 
28 


434  BY  AND  BY. 

one  course  that  I  must  take."     And  he  penned  a  dispatch  in 
reply  to  the  Emperor's  : — 

''  Cousin, — the  argument  which  thou  hast  used  is  as  unwor- 
thy of  thy  head  as  the  deed  which  thou  hast  done  is  of  thy  heart. 
Unless  the  wrong  committed  against  Egypt  be  repaired,  and 
that  speedily,  the  Federal  Council  will  repair  it  for  thee,  and 
at  thy  cost.  Even  I,  who  am  now,  partly  for  my  work  in  the 
Sahara  and  on  thy  behalf,  a  member  of  that  great  tribunal,  will 
give  my  voice  against  thee.  As  it  is,  thou  hast  by  this  act  in- 
definitely deferred  the  admission  of  thy  country  to  the  Con- 
federation of  the  Nations.  The  barbarity  of  thy  deed  is  incom- 
patible Avith  the  civilization  required  of  its  members.  What 
arrangement  may  be  affected  in  the  future  to  secure  an  equit- 
able division  of  the  Nile,  after  thou  shalt,  by  careful  husband- 
ing and  augmenting  of  its  sources,  have  increased  the  volume 
of  its  waters  beyond  that  which  is  required  by  Egypt,  cannot 
now  be  said.  The  duty  required  of  me  is  more  urgent.  I 
devote  myself  utterly  to  the  rescue  of  the  millions  who,  through 
thee,  are  perishing  for  lack  of  food.  The  fortune  which  I 
derived  from  thy  crown  jewels  shall  minister  to  the  preservation 
of  that  crown  from  execration  and  ignominy." 

AVhen  I  had  read  this,  he  said  to  me, — 

"What  I  have  done  hitherto  has  been  done  out  of  income. 
This  emergency  can  be  met  only  by  a  sacrifice  of  principal. 
We  will  return  home  at  once,  and  place  Zoe  with  our  friends, 
and  then  go  to  superintend  in  person  the  distribution  of  sup- 
plies in  Eg3^pt.  I  think  I  read  you  aright  when  I  take  this  to 
be  your  desire." 

Following  his  wont  when  a  wrong  was  done,  he  still  sought 
to  find  pleas  in  mitigation  of  his  cousin's  act.  Anything  seem- 
ed better  than  to  be  compelled  to  regard  it  as  a  treachery  con- 
ceived in  the  beginning.  But  a  consultation  with  his  engineers 
showed  his  hopes  to  be  untenable.  An  underground  exploration 
demonstrated  the  tunnel  to  have  been  raised  above  the  level 
necessary  for  its  declared  purpose  long  before  it  approached  the 


BY   AND  BY.  435 

river.  The  change  of  the  stratum  to  be  pierced,  from  hard 
limestone  to  soft  sandstone,  had  greatly  facilitated  the  opera- 
tions, and  the  downward  course  of  the  water  through  many 
miles  of  the  tunnel  was  so  rapid  as  to  greatly  enlarge  the  chan- 
nel for  itself. 

The  memory  of  these  events  is  too  fresh  to  need  any  recall- 
ing by  me.  How  rapidly  the  world's  horror  at  the  act  of  the 
monarch  of  the  dark  continent,  and  its  consequences,  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  world's  wonder  at  the  self-immolation  of  him  who 
determined  to  thwart  that  act  and  avert  those  consequences,  is 
too  well  known  to  require  description  here.  Christmas  Carol 
determined  to  save  Egypt  by  himself ;  not  that  he  could  or 
would  dissuade  others  from  aiding,  but  by  his  promptitude  and 
the  immensity  of  his  efforts  he  anticipated  and  distanced  all 
competition.  Summoned  by  him,  from  all  quarters  of  the 
lieavens  sjied  "  argosies  of  magic  sails,"  laden  with  the  essen- 
tials of  life,  and  dropping  down  with  their  precious  cargoes  in 
the  midst  of  the  hungry  and  grateful  populations. 

For  a  whole  year  must  these  millions  be  supported  by  such 
charity,  even  were  the  Nile  restored  in  time  to  afford  supplies 
for  the  year  following.  In  spite  of  the  danger  he  was  incur- 
ring, the  Emperor  remained  obdurate.  Although  knowing  that 
a  solemn  appeal  had  been  made  to  the  Federal  Council,  he  re- 
fused to  restore  the  river,  and  sent  an  army  to  guard  the  dam 
and  the  entrance  to  his  tunnel  against  the  Egyptians.  But,  an 
army  on  the  ground  to  withstand  an  army  in  the  air!  The 
idea  would  be  madness.  Carol,  however,  clung  to  the  hope  that 
it  was  madness,  and  not  badness  that  had  perverted  the  mind 
of  his  cousin  ;  for  it  was  upon  this  theory  that  he  accounted  for 
all  the  villains  of  history.  Avenil's  theory  is  the  same,  only  he 
uses  it  to  account  for  the  saints  of  history.  Urging  this  plea  in 
arrest  of  the  Council's  vengeance,  and  eager  to  save  life  to  the 
utmost,  he  requested  that  an  aerial  force,  comprising  a  strong 
working  party,  might  be  placed  at  his  disposal,  to  be  employed 
on  a  service  known  only  to  the  Council. 

His  request  was  granted  ;  and  leaving  me  in  charge  of  the 


436  BY  AND  BY. 

food-distribution,  the  organization  of  which  was  now  perfected, 
he  suddenly  descended  with  the  Federal  squadron  upon  the 
camp  at  the  dam.  The  event  was  as  he  expected.  Not  a  man 
of  the  Imperial  forces  would  risk  an  encounter.  The  first  shell, 
dropped  so  as  to  explode  over  their  heads,  dispersed  the  entire 
garrison,  and  the  miners  of  the  expedition  were  left  unmolested 
to  work  their  will  upon  the  dam  and  tunnel. 

So  vast  and  solid  were  the  works,  that  it  was  evident  their 
construction  must  have  employed  thousands  of  men  for  years. 
On  one  side,  the  mountain  had  been  pierced  to  make  way  for 
the  river,  and  on  the  other  it  had  been  cast  into  the  bed  and 
walled  up  with  mighty  rocks,  to  turn  the  river  into  its  new 
channel.  In  addition  to  this,  a  tunnel  of  enormous  dimensions 
had  been  hewn  through  the  solid  rock  for  scores  of  miles 
towards  the  desert. 

The  first  thing  was  to  mine  the  dam,  with  a  view  to  blowing 
it  up.  This  was  no  small  task,  but  the  expedition  was  equal 
to  it,  and  having  made  preparations  for  a  series  of  explosions, 
at  a  given  signal  the  mass  was  so  loosened  that  it  yielded  to  the 
pressure  of  the  water,  and  went  rushing  with  it  down  the  now 
open  channel  of  the  riA'er. 

So  low  cut,  however,  was  the  tunnel,  that  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  stream  still  escaped  into  it.  The  stoppage  of  this 
was  a  task  of  greater  difficulty  ;  and  it  was  necessary  to  accom- 
plish it  solidly,  so  that  on  its  next  rise  the  river  should  be  safe 
from  a  return  to  the  tunnel.  On  the  successful  conclusion  of 
the  work,  Carol  rejoined  me  in  Egypt,  exceedingly  broken  in 
health  by  his  wear  of  mind  and  body.  Far  more  than  from  his 
tremendous  physical  exertions,  did  he  suifer  from  the  thought 
of  his"  cousin's  perfidy.  His  sensitive  soul  seemed  to  be  struck 
to  its  quick,  as  by  the  fang  of  a  venomous  serpent.  His  illness 
assumed  so  serious  a  character  as  to  make  his  immediate  return 
home  imperative. 

In  order  to  guard  against  a  reconstruction  of  the  dam,  one  of 
the  vessels  of  the  squadron  was  detached,  with  orders  to  cruise 
at  intervals  over  the  locality. 


BY  AND  BY.  437 


CHAPTEE  X. 

Even  when  restored  to  the  quiet  of  his  own  home,  and  tend- 
ed assiduously  by  Zoe,  Bertie,  and  myself,  Carol  failed  to  regain 
his  lost  health.  Zoe  manifested  all  the  joy  to  see  me  that  I 
could  wish,  but  its  quality  was  not  of  the  kind  I  desired.  Her 
demeanor  continued  to  have  the  perfect  frankness  befitting  a 
sister,  but  obstinately  refused  to  take  any  other  form.  She 
gladly  admitted  me  to  share  in  all  the  offices  of  ministering  to 
her  father,  precisely  as  if  I  had  been  a  born  brother  to  her. 

I,  meanwhile,  made  my  home  with  Bertie,  becoming  as  much 
attached  to  him  as  does  everyone  else  who  has  the  opportunity. 
He  had  outgrown  the  liability  to  the  sudden  illnesses  which  so 
alarmed  his  friends  a  few  years  back,  so  that  old  age  found  him 
a  hale  and  hearty  man.  Together  we  daily  walked  to  and  fro 
between  the  two  houses,  and  from  him  I  learnt  many  particu- 
lars of  Carol's  life  which  before  were  unknown  to  me.  He  was 
very  grave  about  his  "  dear  boy,"  as  he  always  called  him,  and 
said  that  it  was  far  more  from  a  moral  than  from  a  physical 
shock  that  he  was  suffering. 

Carol's  own  hopelessness  of  his  recovery  was  a  bad  symptom. 
He  maintained  that  his  work  was  done,  and  had  ended  in  dis- 
appointment. Hearts  were  harder  than  rocks.  The  latter  by 
a  little  industr}^  and  skill  were  redeemable.  The  former  resist- 
ed alike  all  influences  of  love  and  of  friendship.  How  he  had 
failed  to  win  the  souls  of  his  wives,  was  already  known  to  me. 
Now  he  would  tell  me  all  the  story  of  the  Emperor,  and  I 
should  see  what  cause  he  had  for  despair.  Twice  had  he  saved 
his  capital  from  the  destruction  it  would  inevitably  have  met  at 
the  hands  of  the  Federal  Council,  besides  heaping  benefits  innu- 
merable upon  him  and  his  people ;  but  now  no  word  came  of 
repentance  or  sorrow.  What  was  the  meaning  of  the  advan- 
tages with  which  he  had  been  endowed,  if  their  exercise  thus 
resulted  in  ignominious  failure  ? 

I  adjured  him  to  take  a  more  sanguine  view  of  things.     He 


438  BY  AND  BY. 

judged  by  too  higli  a  standard,  even  the  impossible  standard  of 
bis  own  ideal ;  although  the  result  had  not  been  what  his 
imagination  had  framed,  yet  for  all  others  it  had  been  truly 
immense.  In  any  case,  a  beautiful  example,  such  as  he  had  set 
the  world,  could  never  be  lost. 

Referring  to  Zoe,  he  said  that  but  for  her  he  should  be  glad 
to  be  at  rest.  She  needed  some  one  to  lean  upon.  What  did 
I  think  of  her  ?  Had  the  interval  been  sufficient  to  enable  her 
to  become  herself  again  ? 

I  told  him  that  I  believed  her  to  be  perfectly  recovered,  only 
that  she  had  taken  a  firm  resolve  to  lead  a  solitary  life.  Her 
very  frankness  with  me  showed  that  she  regarded  all  men  as 
brothers. 

"And  you?"  he  said,  regarding  me  with  a  wistful  smile. 
"Are  you  still  of  the  same  mind?" 

I  assured  him  that,  with  me,  to  know  Zoe  was  to  love  her, 
but  that  I  had  repressed  every  indication  of  the  feeling,  through 
fear  of  its  making  a  barrier  between  us  if  known  to  her.  "  I 
sometimes,"  I  added,  "  am  disposed  to  think  she  still  regrets 
her  severance  from  that  man,  even  though  she  would  on  no 
account  be  again  associated  with  him." 

Avenil,  who  came  at  short  intervals,  went  away  each  time 
more  depressed.  "Never  before  was  I  disposed  to  believe  in  a 
broken  heart,"  he  said.  "  Yet  I  can  find  nothing  else  to 
account  for  his  state." 

The  doctor  agreed  with  Avenil,  but  said  that  Carol's  was  a 
constitution  of  which  the  heart  was  the  basis.  To  injure  him 
in  the  emotional  region  was  to  strike  at  his  most  vital  part. 
With  him  it  was  as  if  the  body  were  but  a  function  of  the 
mind,  not  the  mind  of  the  body. 

"Bertie,  dear,"  said  Zoe  one  day,  "my  father  tells  us  that  he 
wants  nothing  but  to  be  at  rest.  Does  he  say  the  same  to 
you?  Is  there  anything  that  could  be  done  to  bring  him  com- 
fort ?  " 

"  I  hate  to  bring  a  pang  to  your  dear  heart,"  replied  the  old 
man.  "  If  you  will  know,  there  is  one  thing  that  preys  upon 
him,  but  he  shrinks  from  obtaining  comfort  at  your  cost." 


BY  AND   BY.  439 

"  My  cost !     What  is  my  cost  to  his  happiness  ?  " 

''  He  says  he  would  die  in  peace  if  he  only  could  see  you 
worthily  wedded  first." 

Her  lip,  ordinarily  so  indicative  of  sweetness,  curled  with 
scorn. 

"  I  worthily  wedded  !  Bertje,  have  either  you,  he,  or  I  lost 
our  memories?"  and  sinking  into  a  sofa,  ^jhe  murmered,  "I 
worthily  wedded  !     I  worthily  wedded ! " 

"  Bertie ! "  she  said,  springing  up  again,  "  has  my  fathfer 
fixed  upon  any  '  worthy  '  man  to  be  the  victim  ?  " 

Catching  his  eye,  she  again  exclaimed, — 

"  I  see  your — his  meaning.  No, — Lawrence  Wilmer  is  too 
good  a  man  for  such  a  fate.  Happily  he  has  no  such  thought 
of  me.  He  is  a  model  of  a  brother,  and  I  hope  to  retain  him  as 
one." 

"  Wy  dear  Zoe,"  replied  Bertie,  "  there  is  no  respect  in  which 
you  show  yourself  to  be  your  father's  own  child  more  than  in 
your  throwing  your  life  away  in  remorse  for  the  faults  of 
others.  Now,  without  being  in  Lawrence's  confidence  or 
secrets,  I  read  him  very  differently  from  you.  My  impression 
is  that  he  is  longing  to  win  your  love,  but  fears  by  betraying 
his  feeling  to  repel  you  from  him,  and  so  lose  altogether  the 
delight  of  your  societ3^" 

While  listening  to  this  speech  her  color  changed  rapidly,  she 
sank  down  upon  the  sofa,  and  gasped  as  for  breath.  Presently 
recovering  herself  she  said,  speaking  more  quietly  than  be- 
fore,— 

"  I  think  you  must  be  mistaken  about  Mr.  Wilmer's  senti- 
ments. I  am  sure  he  looks  upon  me  only  as  a  sister,  and  that 
a  somewhat  fallen  one,  whose  due  is  compassion  rather  than 
love." 

She  said  this  with  a  formality  which,  as  Bertie  j)erceived, 
cost  her  an  effort. 

"  Then  at  least  the  idea  of  his  caring  for  you  is  not  disagree- 
able to  you  ?  "  said  the  old  man,  hazarding  a  bold  stroke  in 
order  to  surprise  her  out  of  her  secret,  if  she  had  one. 

Zoe  was  silent.  She  could  not  contradict  him,  and  she 
would  not  speak  untruly. 


440  SY  AND  BY. 

"  My  darling  child,  this  will  make  your  father  intensely 
happy.     May  I  tell  him  ?  " 

"Your  imagination  is  outrunning  your  facts,  at  least  with 
one  of  the  parties  concerned,"  she  replied,  somewhat  saucily,  it 
appeared  to  Bertie  ;  but  he  saw  that  her  eyes  were  brimming 
over  with  tears,  and  that  she  spoke  under  an  effort  to  check 
them. 

"  I  promise  not  to  betray  you,  in  case  I  am  wrong  about 
Lawrence." 

*'  Oh,  Bertie  dear,  you  know  my  history.  I  feel  as  if  I  had 
no  right  to  let  myself  love  anyone,  and  still  less  to  accept 
love." 

"  Well,  I  don't  see  it  in  that  light  myself,  and  I  doubt 
whether  anybody  else  does  ;  but  that  is  all  better  said  to  your 
father,  or  to to " 

She  stopped  the  rest  by  a  kiss,  and  made  him  promise  again 
not  to  betray  her. 

Finding  the  invalid  somewhat  revived  the  day  following  this 
conversation,  Bertie  took  occasion  to'  speak  of  me,  remarking 
casually  that  he  could  quite  understand  that  the  presence  of  one 
so  entirely  devoted  and  trustworthy,  must  be  a  vast  solace. 

I  shall  not  rejieat  the  gratifying  things  said  by  Carol  in  an- 
swer, though  they  will  ever  be  treasured  by  me  as  a  precious 
testimonial.  But  Bertie  went  on  to  say  that  what  he  could  not 
understand  was,  any  young  man  being  so  much  with  Zoe  with- 
out falling  utterly  in  love  with  her.  Now  it  seemed,  to  him, 
he  said,  that  nothing  could  be  more  fitting  than  that  I  should 
become  a  son  to  him  in  reality  as  I  was  in  affection  and  con- 
duct. 

"Perhaps,"  said  Carol,  "he  thinks  he  would  have  no  chance, 
and  withholds  himself  from  speech  through  fear  of  offending 
her." 

"  I  see  the  awkwardness  of  the  situation,"  returned  Bertie ; 
"  but  young  men  are  too  apt  to  Ipt  their  diffidence  interfere 
with  the  happiness,  not  of  themselves  only,  but  of  those  who 
trust  to  them  to  take  the  initiative.     It  seems  to  me  so  natural 


BT  AND  BY.  441 

and  probable  that  a  girl  should  be  attracted  by  a  man  of  his 
stamp,  to  say  nothing  of  his  family  associations  with  you,  that 
I  only  wonder  that  on  her  part  Zoe  is  not  as  much  in  love  with 
him  as  he  ought  to  be  with  her." 

Cunning  old  Bertie !  Falling,  unsuspecting,  into  the  trap, 
Carol  exclaimed, — 

''  Oh,  that  she  were  !  There  would  then  be  happiness  all 
round." 

"  Yes,  if  he  cared  likewise  for  her." 

"  But  he  does !  he  does !  We  have  often  spoken  of  it  together. 
She,  however,  seems  bent  on  remaining  unwed.  I  can  quite 
appreciate  her  feeling,"  he  added;  "she  feels  herself  humilia- 
ted by  what  has  already  occurred  to  her,  and  shrinks  from 
again  loving,  or  allowing  herself  to  be  loved.  She  is  not  as  the 
great  majority  of  girls  are  now-a-days." 

"  She  comes  of  a  proud  stock,  I  know,"  remarked  Bertie 
drily. 

Carol  looked  at  him  inquiringly. 

"  I  mean,"  he  continued,  "  that  she  inherits  a  tendency  to 
feel  as  much  mortified  when  she  has  made  a  mistake,  as  if  she 
had  forfeited  a  recognized  claim  to  infallibility.  Now,  I  con- 
sider it  true  humility,  when  one  has  failed  in  anything,  not  to 
brood  over  the  failure — life  may  be  better  employed — but  to 
try  again  until  one  succeeds.  One  does  that  in  learning  a  new 
game  of  amusement.     How  much  more  in  the  game  of  life  ! " 

"  Would  to  heaven  she  would  try  again,  if  only  for  this  once. 
Zoe  united  to  Lawrence,  my  last  wish  would  be  gratified." 

"  Tell  him  to  ask  her." 

"  You  think  she  will  consent  ?  " 

"  I  say  nothing  positively ;  but  I  am  following  my  observa- 
tions. Even  supposing  she  cares  much  for  him,  the  ease  with 
which  he  contrives  to  conceal  his  feeling  for  her,  in  time  may 
come  to  disgust  her.  A  woman  is  very  apt  to  distrust  a  love 
that  can  so  effectually  hide  itself.  Further  delay  may  ruin  his 
chance  altogether." 

"  My  ever  wise  Bertie,  pray  how  came  you  to  know  so  much 
about  women  ?  " 


442  BY  AND  BY. 

At  my  next  interview  with  Carol,  he  spoke  of  his  wish  to  see 
us  ujiited,  and  said  that  he  almost  thought  it  better  that  I 
should  strain  a  point  and  ask  Zoe,  than  delay  too  long.  "  You 
might  even,"  he  said,  "  do  it  under  the  appearance  of  consult- 
ing her,  as  on  a  matter  in  which  both  your  feelings  and  mine 
were  enlisted,  but  in  which  nevertheless  we  were  anxious  to 
defer  to  her  wishes." 

He  was  too  ill  and  exhausted  for  me  to  think  of  following  his 
advice  that  day.  The  weather  was  intensely  hot  and  still. 
Longing  for  the  cool  ujiper  airs  in  which  he  had  been  wont  to 
take  delight,  he  had  given  directions  to  have  a  balloon  con- 
structed, on  the  old  gaseous  system,  but  with  all  the  modern 
improvements.  It  was  to  be  kept  captive  by  a  line  attached  to 
a  Avindlass  in  the  garden,  so  that  he  might  ascend  and  be 
drawn  back  at  will.  Avenil  himself  superintended  the  con- 
struction. The  sick  man's  eagerness  to  have  it  finished,  struck 
me  as  a  hopeful  sign,  but  Avenil  and  the  doctor  shook  their 
heads.  It  was  made  of  a  material  warranted  to  restrain  the 
gas  for  an  indefinite  period  from  fulfilling  its  longings  to  mix 
with  the  atmosphere  ;  and  Carol  struck  us  as  almost  whimsical 
in  his  determination  to  fit  it  with  a  variety  of  contrivances  for 
which,  under  the  circumstances,  we  could  see  no  use.  In  these 
he  was  assisted  by  Bertie,  who  regarded  the  whole  affair  as  an 
elaborate  to}',  but  nevertheless  gave  his  aid  gladly  for  the  sake 
of  his  sick  friend. 

On  the  first  ascent  he  lay  out  so  many  hours  under  the  stars, 
having  mounted  in  the  afternoon,  that  we  were  somewhat  un- 
easy at  his  failing  to  give  the  expected  signal  for  being  drawn 
down.  However,  when  at  length  he  returned  to  us,  he  was  so 
cheerful  and  invigorated  that  we  entertained  hopes  that  the 
balloon  was  to  prove  the  best  of  doctors.  This  was  on  the  day 
after  he  had  suggested  my  making  my  appeal  to  Zoe. 

On  retiring  to  rest  he  said  to  his  daughter : 

"  I  had  a  strange  longing,  Zoe,  when  lying  up  yonder,  to  cut 
my  tether  and  soar  away  never  to  return.  I  think  it  was  only 
the  idea  of  leaving  you  alone  and  unprotected  that  restrained 
me.  Would  it,  darling,  be  such  a  very  great  sacrifice  for  you 
to  make  to  my  comfort,  to  marry  Lawrence  ?" 


BY   AND  BY.  443 

I  was  at  the  furthest  end  of  the  room,  and  observed  only  that 
they  were  conversing  in  a  low  tone. 

"  I  fear,  my  father,"  she  replied,  in  a  faltering  voice,  and 
1  coking  very  much  abashed,  "  I  fear  that  it  would  be  too  great 
a  sacrifice  to  ask  of — him."  -- 

"  So  that  if  he  were  readj'-  to  make  it,  you  would  not  object  ?" 

"  For  your  sake,  my  father,  I  would  not  be  out-done  in 
generosity." 

A  lurking  smile  revealed  all  to  him.  Kissing  her  fair  broad 
brow,  he  said  : 

"  Then,  should  Lawrence  likewise  not  deem  it  too  great  a 
sacrifice,  and  say  as  much  to  you,  you  will  not  take  offence  ? 
I  should  miss  him  greatly  were  he  compelled  to  quit  us.  A 
repulse  from  you  would  be  a  sentence  of  banishment.  Perhaps 
he  had  better  keep  silence,  at  least  until  I  am  gone  ?  " 

"  Nay,  if  he  has  aught  upon  his  mind,  I  should  prefer  tliat 
he  speak.  Whatever  the  issue,  we  could  still  live  together  as 
— as  we  have  done.  I  should  not  think  so  very  much  the  worse 
of  him,  as  to  require  his  dismissal." 

So  they  parted,  Carol  once  more  calling  out  to  me  his  good- 
night as  he  left  the  room. 

I  rarely  lingered  after  his  retirement,  and  now  was  undecided 
whether  to  say  to  Zoe  that  which  was  uppermost  in  my  thoughts. 
What  served  most  to  restrain  me  was  the  reflection  that  it 
might  appear  selfish  to  S]5eak  to  her  of  myself  and  my  wishes 
while  he  was  so  ill. 

Looking  up  from  the  book  over  which,  while  thus  pondering, 
I  had  been  bending,  I  found  Zoe  standing  before  me,  regarding 
nie  steadfastly  with  her  dark,  lustrous  eyes. 

For  a  moment  neither  of  us  spoke.  Then  she  said  : 
"  What  is  it  you  have  been  reading,  Lawrence  ?" 
It  was  a  book  of  dramas,  of  the  Victorian  period.  One 
passage  had  especially  struck  me,  though  occurring  in  a  play 
which  was  disfigured  and  spoilt  by  false  history  and  gross  pre-- 
judices.  I  had  been  wishing  to  read  it  to  Capol,  but  refrained 
through  fear  of  recalling  eyil  memories, 


444  BY  AND  BY. 

"  Sit  down  liere,  Zoe,  and  look  at  this,"  I  said,  making  a 
place  for  her  beside  me.  "  See  how  a  poet  of  many  generations 
ago  wrote  as  if  he  discerned  the  relation  between  color  and  con- 
stitution. In  this  play  of  Charles  I,  the  unfortunate  king  is 
made  to  say  to  his  treacherous  favorite  : 

" '  I  saw  a  picture  once  by  a  great  master; 
'Twas  an  old  man's  head. 
Narrow  and  evil  was  its  wrinkled  brow; 
Eyes  close  and  cunning;  a  dull  vulpine  smile; 
'Twas  called  a  Judas.     Wide  that  artist  err'd. 
Judas  had  eyes  like  thine,  of  candid  blue; 
His  skin  was  soft;  his  hair  of  stainless  gold; 
Upon  his  brow  shone  the  white  stamp  of  truth ; 
And  lips  like  thine  did  give  the  traitor-kiss.' 

"  Is  it  not  a  full-length  picture  of  your  stepmother ;  that  is, 
supposing  the  fairness  to  have  been  of  her  white,  bloodless 
hue?" 

"Aye,  and  still  more  so  of Oh,  Lawrence,  how  could 

you  remind  me  of  him  ?  " 

"  My  darling  Zoe  ! "  I  exclaimed,  thunderstruck  at  my  heed- 
lessness. "  I  would  not  have  pained  3'ou  for  the  world.  I 
thought  only  of  the  sister.  You  know  I  have  never  seen 
George  Bliss.  To  me  he  is  but  a  phantom,  though  a  jDhantom 
whom  to  secure  your  happiness  I  would  pursue  to  the  world's 
end,  until  I  had  driven  him  beyond  the  flaming  bounds  of 
space  ;  aye,  and  will,  Zoe,  if  you  will  tell  me  that  by  inflicting 
such  vengeance  upon  him,  I  can  ease  your  heart  of  but  the 
smallest  pang." 

'•'  You  would  do  so  much  for  me,  Lawrence  ?  My  father  was 
wondering  just  now  which  of  us  would  make  the  greatest  sacri- 
fice for  him." 

"  Well,  Zoe,  I  am  ready  to  enter  the  lists  with  you.  AVhat 
is  to  be  the  nature  of  the  competition  ?  " 

"  I  like  what  you  said  of  George  Bliss  just  now.  It  is  a 
relief  to  me  to  think  that  you  regard  him  only  as  a  phantom. 
It  will  help  me  to  banish  my  evil  memories." 

"  Tell  me,  Zoe,  do  you  mean   that   you   really  have  been 


BT  AND  BY.  445 

allowing  the  past  to  influence  the  disposition  of  your  plans, 
and — and  affections  for  the  future  ?  " 

"  In  what  way  do  you  mean,  Lawrence  ?  " 

"  For  instance,  is  it  on  that  account  that  you  have  withdrawn 
yourself  from  Society,  and  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  nun,  holding  yourself  in  so  that  no  man,  not  even  I,  who 
almost  live  with  you,  would  venture  to  speak  to  you  of  love — 
no  matter  how  mighty  the  impulse — for  fear  of  grieving  and 
offending  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Lawrence,  it  is  so." 

"  And  why,  pray  ?  " 

"  Because  I  am  a  woman,  and  have  a  woman's  instincts." 

"  Then  hear  me,  Zoe,"  I  said,  placing  my  hand  upon  hers. 

"  It  is  because  you  are  a  woman  and  have  a  woman's  in- 
stincts, that  you  are  absolved  from  all  shadow  of  blame  for  the 
past,  and  therefore  from  all  cause  for  unhappiness  in  the  future. 
It  is  because  you  are  a  woman  and  have  a  woman's  instincts, 
that  you  are  capable  of  putting  love  before  prudence,  and  lav- 
ishing all  the  wealth  of  your  nature  upon  that  which  is  un- 
worthy of  you.  And,  further,  it  is  because  you  are  a  woman 
and  have  a  woman's  instincts,  even  to  this  extent  of  not  despis- 
ing wholly  that  which  is  not  wholly'  worthy  your  regard,  that 
I  presume  to  tell  you  that  I  love  you,  and  to  ask  you  whether 
I  may  hope  you  will  ever  consent  to  bless  my  life  with  the  gift 
of  the  only  woman  I  have  ever  loved  or  longed  for." 

She  seemed  very  much  surprised,  and  said : 

"  How  long  have  you  felt  thus  toward  me  ?  " 

The  little  book  of  my  winter  in  Iceland  was  lying  on  the 
table  before  us.     Opening  it  at  the  verse  beginning, — 

"  Why  haunt  me  when  I  know  Uiou  dost  not  love  me?" 

I  told  her  that  it  began  with  the  first  sight  of  her,  and  had 
grown  ever  since,  the  more  I  saw  her,  until  it  had  become  an 
indispensable  portion  of  my  being. 

"  Oh,  Lawrence,  Lawrence,  how  happy  this  will  make  my 
father  ! "  And  her  head  bent  forward  until  it  rested  on  the 
hand  in  which  I  was  still  holdinsr  hers. 


446  J^y  ^^O  ^Y- 

"  Why,  lie  has  known  of  it  all  along." 

"  I  don't  understand.     Known  of  what  ?  " 

"  Of  my  love  for  you.  That  was  not  wanting  to  make  his 
happiness." 

"  My  dear,  dull  Lawrence  ! " 

"  Ydu  love  me,  then  !  That  must  be  your  meaning.  Sweet- 
est Zoe,  how  could  you  torment  me  so  long  ?  " 

"  Can  you  not  divine  ?  I  thought  you  had  read  me  thor- 
oughly. Listen,  Lawrence :  if  I  did  not  love  you,  I  wished, 
oh,  so  earnestl}'^,  that  it  were  lawful  for  me  to  do  so.  But  I 
dared  not  let  myself  love  an  honorable  and  true  man,  or  to  let 
him  love  me.  Spare  my  speaking.  Can  you,  will  you  not  see 
that  I — I — felt  you  were  worthy  to  have  all  the  freshness  of 
my  lieart  and  soul  and  body,  and  that  I  could  only  offer  you 
the  soiled,  unworthy  creature  that  I  am  ! " 

When  ecstasy  had  subsided  sufficiently  to  allow  of  conversa- 
tion, I  said, 

"  My  own  precious  Zoe,  what  a  thing  it  is  to  have  a  higher 
law  than  that  of  the  Conventional !  Here  is  your  dear  father 
killing  himself  for  the  lapse  of  another  from  an  ideal  that  other 
does  not  recognize ;  and  his  daughter  destroying  her  happiness 
and  mine,  to  say  nothing  of  her  father's,  because  she  was  not 
endowed  with  an  infallibility  that  made  her  superior  to  the  arts 
of  villains !  Really,  Zoe  darling,  such  vanity  needed  such  cor- 
rection. Let  us  believe  the  discipline  has  been  purposely  pro- 
vided for  you.  And  now  let  me  kiss  away  those  tears,  and  we 
will  go  and  tell  your,  nay,  our  father,  that  we  have  agreed  that 
no  sacrifice  is  too  great  to  be  made  to  his  happiness,  and  are 
prepared  for  his  sake  to  put  up  with  each  other ! " 

"  Dear  Lawrence,  I  love  to  be  bantered  by  you.  It  proves 
your  confidence  in  the  reality  of  our  affection.  But  you  too, 
you  know,  have  not  been  exempt  from  submission  to  a  higher 
law  than  that  of  the  Conventional.  The  Conventional  bids  us 
be  truthful  and  honest  under  all  circumstances.  And  you 
practised  concealment  and  deceit  to  save  j'our  mother  from  pain. 
And  you  have  never  before  told  me  you  loved  me!  " 


BY  AND  BY.  447 

A  gentle  tap  at  his  chamber  door  elicited  permission  to  enter. 
Carol  had  not  gone  to  his  bed,  but  was  reclining,  wrapped  in  a 
dressing  gown,  beside  the  open  window,  gazing  at  the  starry 
heavens.  Our  unwonted,  appearance  at  such  an  hour,  and 
linked  hand  in  hand,  told  him  all. 

"I  can  have  no  delay,"  he  said,  "for  I  know  not  how  soon  I 
may  be  called  away.  I  have  been  listening  to  the  sweet  voices 
up  yonder,  and  they  have  come  nearer  to-night  than  ever  be- 
fore. This  only  was  needed  to  enable  me  to  depart  in  perfect 
peace.  To-morrow,  Zoe, — nay,  I  will  not  be  so  precipitate, — 
the  day  after,  you  will  give  me  the  right  to  call  Lawrence  my 
son?" 

Presently  he  continued, — 

"That  Egjrptian  business  has  made  nearly  as  great  inroads 
upon  my  fortune  as  upon  my  health.  One  cannot  keep  so  many 
millions  of  people  for  a  twelvemonth  upon  nothing,  you  know. 
But  there  is  enough  left  to  make  the  wheels  of  life  go  smoothly. 
Don't  go  home  to-night,  Lawrence.  Let  me  feel  that  you  are, 
as  my  son  should  be,  Avhen  he  has  a.  sick  father,  in  the  room 
adjoining  mine.  Yonder  is  Bertie's  wire.  Signal  to  him  not 
to  expect  you  back  to-night,  and  the  cause.  He  will  rejoice 
even  as  one  of  ourselves." 


CHAPTER  XL 

"  So  long  as  ye  both  do  live,  or  love  ?  "  asked  the  lawyer,  as 
he  took  from  his  bag  a  number  of  forms  of  marriage-contracts 
for  us  to  make  a  selection  from. 

"Charms  or  chains?"  said  Bertie,  gaily,  putting  the  query 
into  other  words. 

^  "  Eemember  that  the  former  are  very  liable  to  be  galled  by 
the  latter,"  observed  Lord  Avenil ; — for  all  our  chief  friends 
were  present  to  congratulate  us  and  witness  our  union. 

"  It  is  quite  true,"  said  Mistress  Susanna,  with  a  significant 


448  BT  AND  BY. 

look,  "that  people  are  apt  to  be  kept  on  their  good  behavior  by' 
the  knowledge  that  a  separation  is  easy." 

"  But  it  is  not  infallible,  as  I  know  to  my — gain,"  said  Bessie, 
evidently  on  a  second  thought  substituting  the  word  gain  for 
cost.  She  was  always  a  favorite  of  Carol's,  and  more  than  ever 
since,  in  obedience  to  her  heart,  she  had  vanquished  her  pride, 
and  returned  to  her  husband. 

"With  whom  does  the  decision  rest  ?"  I  asked  of  the  lawyer. 

He  said  that  it  is  a  matter  of  arrangement  between  the 
parties,  the  lady,  if  under  age,  generally  being  represented  by 
her  parents. 

"  My  daughter  and  I  waive  all  voice  in  the  matter,"  said 
Carol  from  his  couch,  "and  leave  it  entirely  to  you,  Lawrence. 
We  have  agreed  to  accept  your  decision,  whatever  it  be," 

This  put  me  in  a  position  of  considerable  embarrassment.  A 
marriage  of  the  first  class  is  soluble  only  for  unfaithfulness,  or 
some  tremendous  fault  equally  impossible  of  contemplation  by 
one  placed  as  I  was,  and  this  accompanied  by  all  the  horrors  of 
a  public  investigation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  advantages  of 
fortune  and  position  were  all  on  the  side  of  the  lady.  lu 
claiming  such  a  marriage,  I  should  be  appropriating  a  life- 
interest  in  her  fortune.  I  asked  the  lawyer  to  repeat  his 
interrogation. 

"  So  long. as  ye  both  do  live,  or  love  ?  " 

"I  may  be  very  stupid,"  I  said,  "but  I  fail  to  see  the  dis- 
tinction.    Do  you  see  it,  Zoe?  " 

She  left  her  father's  side,  where  she  had  been  sitting  with 
her  hand  in  his,  and  came  and  kissed  me  on  the  forehead. 

"Thank  you,  Lawrence,"  she  said.  "I  may  truly  declare 
that  my  life  shall  end  with  my  love.  I  cannot  survive  a  second 
failure." 

"My  dear  Zcie !  I  did  not  mean  a  bit  Avhat  you  mean.  I 
meant  that  my  love  would  only  end  with  my  life." 

She  did  not  kiss  me  this  time,  but  sat  down  by  me,  and  held 
my  hand  in  hers.  It  seemed  wonderful  to  me,  now  that  I  knew 
the  magnetism  of  her  caress,  to  think  that  I  had  been  so  long 
and  so  much  in  her  society  without  learning  it  before.      The 


BY  AND  BT.  449 

readiness  with  whicli  her  nature  opened  to  the  sunshine  of 
affection,  showed  how  severe  was  the  frost  hy  which  it  had 
hitherto  heen  closed. 

At  length,  I  said  that  my  difficulty  in  coming  to  a  decision 
depended,  not  on  any  positive  sentiment  of  mine,  but  on  the 
peculiarity  of  our  respective  positions.  All  the  material  ad- 
vantages being  on  the  other  side,  I  did  not  consider  myself 
entitled  to  consult  my  own  feelings  and  wishes  as  I  should  do 
were  I  in  a  thoroughly  independent  position. 

"  I  anticipated  the  dilemma,"  said  my  dear  Ztie's  father, 
"and  have  endeavored  to  provide  against  it.  This,  Lawrence, 
is  a  deed  of  gift  by  which  I  settle  on  you  a  fortune  sufficient  to 
justify  you  in  deciding  according  both  to  your  judgment  and 
your  heart.  Mark  only  that  we  do  not  seek  to  influence  your 
determination,  but  shall  love  and  respect  you  truly  whatever  it 
be.  So  far  from  that,  the  fortune  is  yours  whether  you  wed  Zoe 
or  not." 

Somehow,  my  circulation  seemed  to  have  become  deranged. 
My  head  was  feeling  dizzy,  and  my  heart  had  taken  to  thump- 
ing against  my  side  in  a  manner  that  I  thought  must  have 
been  audible  all  over  the  room.  And,  what  was  yet  more 
curious,  it  seemed  to  me  to  beat  in  rhythmical  time  with  tlie 
words, — 


"  Let  your  heart  speak,  liawrence  Wihner  !' 
"  Let  your  heart  speak,  Lawrence  Wilmer  !' 


t" 


More  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  time  to  collect  myself,  than 
for  any  other  cause,  I  asked  the  lawyer  to  repeat  his  interroga- 
tion once  again. 

"  So  long  as  ye  both  do  live,  or  love  ?  " 

"  For  life  ! "  I  exclaimed,  with  a  vehemence  1  wao  unable  to 
control  or  to  account  for.     "  For  life,  or  not  at  all !  " 

The  cause  of  my  perturbation  has  since  become  apparent  to 

me.     The    contact   of    Zoe's   hand,   backed  as  it   was    by  the 

intense  desire  of  the  whole  abundant  vitality  of  her  nature,  had 

completely  magnetized  me.     It  was  the  impulse  of  her  blood 

29 


450  BY  AND  BY. 

that  was  circulating  through  my  veins,  her  heart  that  was 
throbbing  in  my  breast,  and  her  wish  that  made  in  my  mind 
the  rhythm, — 

"  Let  your  heart  speak,  Lawrence  "Wilmer!  " 

Slie  herself,  however,  was  quite  unconscious  of  the  effect  she 
was  producing  upon  me,  though  she  admitted  that  she  felt  while 
then  sitting  beside  me  as  if  her  being  was  in  some  mysterious 
way  identified  with  mine. 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  satisfaction  with  which  my  de- 
cision, and  the  heartiness  with  which  I  had  enunciated  it,  were 
regarded. 

"  My  son,  in  very  truth  ! "  exclaimed  Carol,  first  embracing 
me,  and  then  joining  my  hand  to  that  of  his  daughter.  Even 
Susanna  indicated  her  approbation,  by  admitting  that  no  rule 
is  without  its  exception,  and  remarking, — "  Our  Zoe's  character 
is  one  that  requires  the  constant  presence  and  support  of 
a  husband.  Indeed,  she  will  have  nothing  else  to  occupy 
her."  And  the  lawyer  proceeded  to  select  from  his  bundle 
a  form  of  the  first-class,  for  the  signature  of  ourselves  and 
witnesses. 

The  one  drawback  to  our  gladness  was  the  illness  of  our  dear 
father, — for  so  I  shall  now  call  him.  And  here  it  occurs  to  me 
that  some  of  my  readers  may  be  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the 
change  made  sometime  back  in  my  manner  of  styling  him, 
namely,  when,  for  the  familiar  and  affectionate  Criss,  I  sub- 
stituted the  formal  surname.  This  is  the  explanation.  During 
tlie  period  prior  to  my  intimacy  with  him,  I  knew  him  only 
through  the  medium  of  those  whom  a  life-long  and  affectionate 
friend.shiji  justified  in  using  the  familiar  and  endearing  abbre- 
viation. Seeing  him  with  their  eyes,  and  hearing  him  with 
their  ears,  he  naturally  was  for  me  the  Criss  he  was  for  them. 
But  when  I  came  upon  the  scene  and  knew  him  for  myself,  I 
did  not  deem  it  meet  to  adopt  the  same  familiar  tone.  If 
nothing  else,  the  difference  between  our  ages  and  positions 
made  it  unseemly  for  me  to  do  so.     Thus  it  is  that  from  Criss 


BY   AND  BY.  451 

he  became  in  my  narrative  Carol,  or  Christmas  Carol.  I  could 
not  bring  m^'self  to  use  his  conventional  title  of  honor,  shrink- 
ing as  he  himself  did  from  it.  And  now  that  he  has  become 
my  father,  all  other  names  are  merged  in  that  one  cherished 
appellation. 

Whether  owing  to  his  entering  upon  a  new  phase  in  his 
disease,  or  to  a  resolution  to  lessen  our  anxiety  on  his  account 
during  this  first  period  of  our  union,  he  certainly  manifested 
such  an  increase  of  vigor  and  cheerfulness  as  to  fill  us  with 
hopes  for  the  best.  He  insisted  on  my  taking  Zoe  a  short 
tour,  and  introducing  her  anew  as  my  wife  to  the  circle  at  the 
Triangle,  Bertie  the  while  occupying  our  place  by  his  side. 
The  season  continued  to  be  oppressively  hot  and  calm ;  but 
the  device  of  the  captive  balloon  ministered  vastly  to  his 
relief.  He  made  Bertie  also  ascend  with  him,  and  read  his 
correspondence  to  him  in  it.  His  best  hours  were  those  thus 
spent  aloft,  and  it  was  there  he  obtained  his  most  invigorating 
slumber. 

Our  hopes  were  renewed  but  to  be  disappointed.  We  had 
not  long  returned,  when  a  rapid  change  for  the  worse  set  in. 
He  was  fully  aware  of  its  significance,  and  told  the  doctor  he 
should  not  trouble  him  much  longer.  He  conversed  much  Avith 
me  in  a  tone  that,  though  low  and  weak,  was  full  of  gladness. 
He  told  me  of  all  his  plans  for  the  good  of  mankind,  and  spoke 
much  of  Africa  as  of  a  country  whose  welfare  was  especially 
dear  to  him,  notwithstanding  the  fatal  return  he  had  reaped 
from  it.  "  I  suppose  you  know,"  he  added,  "  that  my  cousin 
the  Emperor,  having  no  heir,  is  the  last  of  his  line.  Hapj)ily, 
the  result  of  his  reign  has  been  to  enable  his  people  to  dispense 
with  the  monarchy,  by  fitting  them  for  the  higher  condition  of 
self-government.  However,  should  they  at  any  time  need  a 
sovereign,  the  old  royal  blood  will  still  exist  in  a  son  of  Zbe's. 
Not  that  I  think  you  would  be  wise  to  remind  them,  or  to  avail 
yourself,  of  the  fact.  Successions  and  restorations,  founded 
upon  an  ancient  prestige,  have  invariably  proved  a  curse  to  all 


452  BY  AND  BY. 

concerned.  The  world  must  live  its  own  life."  With  regard 
to  the  Emperor  himself,  he  charged  me  to  do  whatever  might 
be  in  my  power  to  lessen  the  remorse  he  might  feel  at  having 
contributed  to  his  death  ;  though  he  admitted,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  it  might  be  useful  for  the  people  of  Soudan  to  know 
the  truth.  Thus  might  his  death,  he  said,  be  of  more  avail 
than  his  life.  Some  causes  never  prosper  until  they  have  had 
their  martyr. 

*'  Such  reflection  will  bring  but  poor  comfort  to  us,"  I  said, 
scarcely  able  to  speak  for  the  fullness  of  my  heart ;  "  though 
history  fully  bears  it  out,  even  that  of  Him  whom  of  all  men 
you  have  ever  most  loved  and  cherished.  It  must  be  an  addi- 
tional embitterment,"  I  continued,  "to  know  that  one's  end  has 
been  compassed  by  the  treachery  of  a  chosen  friend.  Yet,  even 
the  least  fallible  of  human  hearts  was  forced  to  admit  the 
existence  of  a  '  son  of  perdition,'  redeemable  by  no  love,  and 
to  lament  over  his  failure  to  save  him." 

"  I  suppose  it  ought  to  comfort  me,"  he  returned,  "  to  think 
that,  whereas  He  met  with  one,  the  traitors  to  me  have  been 
but  two.  That,  however,  is  not  the  thought  from  which  my 
comfort  comes.  I  am  unable  to  recognize  any  as  a  child  of 
perdition.  It  is  not  given  to  me  to  fathom  all  moral  mysteries, 
but  I  see  enough  to  enable  me  to  trust,  and  that  not  faintly, 
the  larger,  nay,  the  largest  hope — the  hope  that  at  last,  far  off 
it  may  be,  yet  at  last  to  all,  good  will  be  the  final  goal " 

I  recognized  the  quotation  he  was  too  weak  to  finish. 

Recovering  a  little,  he  continued, — 

"  After  I  am  gone  tell  this  to  the  Emperor,  my  cousin,  with 
my  love  and  pardon.  Tell  it,  too,  to  her  from  whom  I  was 
compelled  to  separate.  It  is  not  the  good  who  are  to  me  a 
proof  of  the  hereafter,  but  the  bad.  And  that,  not  for  their 
chastisement,  but  for  their  amendment :  that  is,  their  develop- 
ment, the  development  in  them  of  the  moral  sense — that 
divine  spark,  of  whose  marvellous  vitality  we  have  before 
spoken — a  development  necessary,  one  would  suppose,  for  His 
own  satisfaction,  as  well  as  for  their  benefit.  That  is,  if  like 
man,  He  hates  leaving  any  portion  of  his  work  unfinished."  ' 


BY  AND  BY.  453 

Zoe  and  I  sat  much  by  Lis  couch  watching  the  face  with  the 
divine  eyes  closed,  and  often  detecting  no  appearance  of 
breathing ;  but  there  was  ever  over  all  the  smile  of  intense 
peace. 

More  than  once  we  thought  him  gone,  when  he  returned  to 
consciousness  with  ideas  which  seemed  freshly  gathered  from 
the  communion  of  saints.  Once  we  thought  he  was  wandering 
in  mind,  for  we  discerned  amid  his  murmurings  words  that 
seemed  to  us  utterly  irrelevant.  But  presently  his  wan  face  lit 
up  joyously,  and  he  exclaimed  in  a  voice  of  more  than  his 
Wonted  power, — 

"  Yes  !  yes  !  It  is  indeed  encouraging.  To  what  may  not 
life  come,  when  we  see  the  progress  it  has  already  nfade  ! "  An 
utterance  to  which  Avenil  afterwards  supplied  the  clue,  as  well 
as  its  relation  to  the  words  which  had  struck  us  as  so  irrelevant. 
Those  words  were  Aquarium  and  Zoological.  His  mind  was 
running  upon  a  conversation  he  had  held  with  Avenil  on  a 
recent  visit  to  the  institutions  indicated,  a  conversation  in 
which  they  had  made  the  objects  before  them  the  text  of 
a  discussion  on  their  respective  theories  of  existence  and 
evolution. 

The  subject  had  evidently  taken  great  hold  of  him  ;  and  it 
was  with  no  little  interest  that  Zoe  and  I  continued  to  listen 
to  the  workings  of  his  mind  in  relation  to  it,  as  he  continued 
his  colloquy  with  the  Invisible. 

"All  is  is  clear  now;  even  the  Justice  that  was  so  dark  and 
inscrutable.  I  see  now  that  the  Universe  is  thy  first  thought, 
and  not  the  mere  translation  into  fact  of  a  thought  already 
conceived,  and  that  in  some  way  mysterious  to  us,  Thou  thyself 
livest  therein.  But  thou  seemedst  to  me  sometimes  to  think 
too  slowly.  I  wanted  heaven  to  be  reached  at  a  single  bound. 
Impatient  myself,  I  rebelled  against  thy  patience.  I  could  not 
bear  that  men  should  themselves  build  the  ladder  by  which  they 
must  rise,  toilsome  round  by  round.  Oh,  how  I  rejoice  in  my 
conviction  of  thy  inexorable  justice,  for  therein  alone  lies 
safety  for  all.  Out  upon  those  who  would  divorce  it  from 
mercy,    and    thrust    themselves    between.      Thy    justice    and 


454  BY   AND  BY  * 

thy  mercy  are  one  and  the  same.  Oh,  men  my  brothers,  what 
have  ye  not  suffered  through  that  divorce !  The  justice  that 
could  swerve  to  one  side  could  swerve  also  to  the  other.  But 
trusting  the  justice,  ye  cannot  but  trust  the  maker  of  the  con- 
ditions to  be  content  with  the  products ;  seeing  that  it  would 
be  injustice  to  make  the  products  disproportionate  to  the  con- 
ditions. If  the  conditions  liave  a  right  to  exist,  the  products 
have  a  like  right.  The  poor  soil  and  the  arid  sky  are  as  much 
a  part  of  the  universal  order  as  the  rich  garden,  soft  rain,  and 
warm  sunshine.  It  is  just  that  one  should  yield  a  crop  which 
the  other  would  despise.  It  would  be  unjust  were  both  to  yield 
alike.  It  is  only  from  those  to  whom  much  is  given  that  much 
is  required.  The  worm  !  the  worm  is  one  of  the  conditions ; 
yes,  Amelia,  even  the  worm  that  eats  out  the  heart!  Nannie, 
darling!  are  you  listening?  and  do  you  comprehend?  See! 
you  have  taught  me  something." 

Speaking  thus,  he  suddenly  raised  himself  and  looked  around 
with  a  bewildered  air.  The  sight  of  Zoe  and  me  recalled  him 
to  the  present,  and  he  said, — 

"  You  believe,  Lawrence,  that  the  good  will  ultimately  pre- 
vail. You  must  revise  your  belief,  for  it  is  wrong.  The  good 
is  always  prevailing,  though  we  may  perceive  it  not.  Ponder 
this  and  you  Avill  learn  that,  from  the  very  nature  and  defini- 
tion of  good,  it  cannot  be  otherwise.  For  by  good  we  mean 
that  which  assimilates  and  harmonizes  to  the  greatest  extent 
its  surrounding  conditions  :  that  which  works  in  truest  sym- 
pathy with  the  essential  nature  of  the  rest.  That  is  evil  which 
by  its  very  selfishness  arraigns  the  rest  against  it.  Good  needs 
no  power  working  from  without  to  make  it  triumphant.  It 
triumphs  by  w^inning  the  sympathies  of  all  to  work  with  it." 

For  some  time  he  remained  unconscious  to  all  around,  and 
murmuring  words  that  were  hard  to  understand,  though  the 
voice  was  not  the  voice  of  grief.  After  a  while,  either  through 
their  becoming  clearer,  or  our  ears  being  better  trained,  we 
learnt  to  comprehend  their  import.  While  occupied  one  day 
in  listening  to  them,  Bertie  being  with  us,  Avenil  apjieared  at 
the  door,  asking  mutely  if  he  might  enter.  Beckoning  him  to 
tread  softly  over  the    carpet,   he    approached    noiselessly   and 


BY  AND  BY.  455 

joined  tlie  groiip.  The  murmuring  was  going  on,  though  so 
faintly  as  to  require  close  listening  if  we  would  catch  its 
meaning. 

Avenil  bent  down  and  listened. 

"  There  is  music  and  rhythm,"  he  whispered.  "  It  is  more 
singing  than  talking.  What  can  it  he  that  he  sings  at  such  a 
moment  ?  Methought  I  caught  the  words.  '  Heaven  the  reflex 
of  earth.'  " 

He  was  answered  by  Zoe,  unconsciously  using  the  words  of 
her  father's  favorite  poet : 

"  He  sings  of  what  the  world  will  he  when  the  years  have 
died  away  ! " 

"  He  leaves  the  world  as  he  entered  it :  a  Christmas  Carol  to 
the  last,"  said  Bertie. 

After  a  while  his  eyes  opened,  and  brightened  as  they  rested 
on  Avenil. 

"  Master  Charles,  dear,"  he  said,  using  his  old  boyish  phrase 
for  him,  "  I  was  wishing  for  you.  I  want  you  to  take  Zoe  and 
Lawrence  back  to  the  Triangle  with  you  to-night.  Do  not 
speak,  please,  but  gratify  me,"  he  added,  turning  his  eyes  to  us. 
"  I  want  this  night  the  repose  of  absolute  solitude — solitude, 
that  is,  so  far  as  this  world  and  its  affections  are  concerned.  I 
.wish  to  be  alone  with — "  and  here  his  voice  became  inaudible. 

He  was  evidently  bent  upon  it,  and  with  heavy  hearts  we 
obeyed  him,  first  impressing  our  kisses  on  his  brow.  Bertie 
was  the  last  to  leave  him,  even  as  he  had  been  the  first  to 
receive  him.  We  intended,  however,  to  return  very  early  next 
day. 

In  the  morning  we  were  aroused  by  a  messenger  bearing  a 
letter  from  Bertie.  It  said,  "  He  is  gone  ;  gone  as  he  himself 
wished  to  go.  I  remained  with  him  a  while  after  your  de- 
parture. He  appeared  to  rally,  and  asked  me  to  help  him  to 
walk  across  the  garden  to  the  balloon.  The  effort  of  making 
those  few  steps  exhausted  his  strength.  On  reaching  the  bal- 
loon he  was  forced  to  lie  down  in  the  car.  After  a  little  while, 
it  being  quite  dark,  he  asked  me  to  light  a  signal  lamp,  the 
pale  green  one,  containing  Avenil's  famous  composition.     Its 


i:,G  BY  AND  BY. 

brilliant  light  seemed  to  inspirit  him,  for  he  declared  he  would 
go  aloft,  and  have  his  sleep  there.  '  I  think,  dear  Bertie,'  he 
said,  'that  I  should  die  happier,  if  that  were  possible,  did  I 
know  that  I  should  for  ever  remain  aloft  in  the  land  of  dreams. 
Should,  by  any  chance,  the  balloon  escape  with  me,  and  bear 
my  body  upwards,  do  not  send  in  search  of  it.  Let  it  be,  so 
long  as  the  elements  suffer  it.  A  wild  fancy  you  will  think 
this,  Bertie,  but  it  is  my  fancy.  Now  kiss  me,  Bertie,  and  set 
the  windlass  free.  Tell  the  servants  to  await  my  signal  for 
hauling  me  in  ;  or  if  that  does  not  come — and  it  may  not,  you 
know  (he  smiled  significantly  as  he  said  this) — ^they  may  let 
me  be  till  morning,  unless  the  wind  comes  on  to  blow  strongly.' 

"As  he  finished  speaking,  he  composed  himself  on  the  little 
couch  in  the  balloon,  in  the  attitude  of  one  of  the  recumbent 
monumental  figures  in  the  ancient  cathedrals,  his  face  illumin- 
ated by  the  signal  lamp,  already  looking  like  the  face  of  the 
peaceful  dead.  I  lingered,  not  liking  to  let  him  go  where  he 
woukl  be  alone  and  far  from  help ;  but  he  cried  to  me,  '  Now ! 
Bertie,  now  I  am  ready.  Let  me  rise  ! '  and  so  with  reluctant 
hand  I  pressed  the  spring  of  the  windlass,  and  suffered  the  bal- 
loon slowly  to  ascend.  The  night  was  intensely  still.  '  Per- 
haps,' I  said  to  myself  'the  airs  aloft  will  revive  him  once 
more,  according  to  their  wont,  and  the  morning  will  bring  him 
back  better.' 

"Alas,  dear  friends,  I  have  to  tell  you  that  the  morning 
failed  to  bring  him  back  at  all. 

"  I  had  gone  into  the  house  to  lie  down  just  as  I  was,  keep- 
ing my  face  upturned  to  the  window  whence  I  could  see  the 
light  of  his  signal  lamp.  I  am  old,  and  I  was  weary  and  heavy 
with  sadness,  and  I  suppose  I  dropped  asleep.  But  on  waking 
I  could  no  longer  see  the  light.  Calling  one  of  his  attendants, 
I  enquired  whether  he  could  see  it,  for  it  might  be  that  there 
was  a  mist  either  in  the  air  or  in  my  eyes.  He  said  that  either 
it  must  have  gone  out,  or  else  the  balloon  had  escaped. 

"  Hastening  into  the  garden,  I  stumbled  over  what  proved  to 
be  a  coil  of  rope.  The  man  reached  the  windlass,  and  cried 
that  it  was  indeed  so,  the  balloon  had  broken  loose,  and  his 
master  was  lost. 


BY  AND  BY.  457 

"At  my  bidding  he  brought  a  light,  and  we  searched  for  the 
rope,  over  which  I  had  stumbled.  It  was  indeed  the  line  by 
which  the  balloon  had  been  attached  to  the  windlass,  and 
which  now  lay  with  its  vast  length  in  j^oils  about  the  lawn.  I 
examined  the  end,  to  ascertain  whether  the  escape  had  been  in- 
tended or  accidental.  There  was  no  breakage :  it  had  been 
regularly  detached  from  its  fastenings.  I  remembered  then 
that  the  attachment  had  been  made  by  an  ingenious  con- 
trivance, which,  while  it  was  impossible  to  become  loosened  of 
itself,  was  yet  capable  of  detachment  by  a  slight  pull. 

"  Dear  ones,  with  whom  I  mourn  as  for  a  son  prematurely 
taken  from  me,  though  this  be  so,  there  is  no  need  to  suppose 
that  our  beloved  one  hastened  his  own  end.  His  latest  words 
show  that  he  contemplated  the  probability  of  his  not  surviving 
until  morning:  also  that  he  coveted  to  take  his  rest  in  the 
clear  upper  airs  rather  than  on  the  murky  earth.  I  am  con- 
vinced that,  feeling  his  dying  struggle  upon  him,  he,  in  a  final 
convulsion,  withdrew  the  attaching  bolt,  and  soared  upwards, 
body  and  soul  together.  The  vessel  which  bears  him,  a  very 
ship  of  heaven,  will  never  come  down  again ;  at  least,  not  in 
the  days  of  any  now  dwelling  upon  earth.  Nay,  such  is  its 
extraordinary  buoyancy — he  would  have  it  so,  to  steady  it  in 
the  wind,  while  yet  a  captive — tliat,  on  being  released,  it  must 
at  once  have  shot  far  up  into  those  rare  strata  of  airs  whither 
no  living  person  can  follow  it,  for  death  would  overcome  them 
long  before  they  could  reach  the  altitude  where  alone  it  will 
find  its  balance  and  fixed  height. 

"Let  us,  then,  think  of  him  we  loved,  not  as  mouldering  in 
the  damp  earth,  but  as  riding,  even  in  death  free  and  joyous, 
upon  the  blasts  he  so  loved  to  surmount  in  life,  and  sleeping 
the  sleep  of  the  righteous,  or  mingling,  with  the  pure  spirits  of 
his  living  dreams." 

*  *  #  *  * 

"  Oh,  Lawrence,  Lawrence,  can  it  really  be  that  we  shall  see 
him  no  more  ?  that  he  can  never  again  come  down  to  us?  May 
not  the  fresh  airs  aloft  revive  him,  as  they  so  oft  have  done? 
Ah,  I  see  you  have  no  hope,  and  that  I  must  be  resigned.  But, 
oh,  what  a  sense  of  perpetual  unrest  it  gives  me  to  think  of  him 


458  BY  AND  BY. 

lying  out  upon  the  breezes,  subject  to  no  conditions  of  regular 
motion  or  speed,  but  evermore  a  sjJort  to  the  most  capricious  of 
elements.  I  have  been  longing  for  night  that  we  might  sweep 
the  heavens  for  his  pale  green  star.  It  is  so  calm  that  it  may 
yet  be  within  range  of  the  great  Reflector  in  the  Observatory. 
Come  up  and  search  with  me." 

"  Let  us  not  call  the  element  he  loved  so  well  capricious,  my 
Zoe,"  I  replied,  as  we  ascended  to  the  astronomical  tower  of  the 
Triangle.  "  None  better  than  he  comprehended  the  secret  of 
its  impulses.  The  perfect  sympathy  subsisting  between  the 
atmosphere  and  the  sun ;  its  responsiveness  to  every  varying 
thrill  that  expresses  itself  to  us  in  heat,  color,  magnetism,  light, 
was  for  him  the  most  significant  symbol  of  the  dependence  of 
the  individual  upon  the  universal  soul.  Born  in  a  balloon,  I 
verily  believe  that  by  his  own  choice,  though  the  action  of  some 
divine  instinct,  he  is  also  buried  in  a  balloon.  Buried,  as  Ber- 
tie well  says,  not  to  moulder  in  damp  dark  earth,  but  far  above 
the  corroding  influences  of  our  lower  atmosphere  ;  far  above  the 
lightning-ranges  ;  far  above  the  breezes  such  as  we  know  them  ; 
even  in  those  blue  depths  of  air  whence  he  was  wont  in  life  to 
seek  his  inspirations.  Let  us  rather  envy  him  his  Euthana- 
sia !  " 

"  Ah,  and  if  I  thought  that  thei/  would  still  visit  him,  and 
whisper  to  him  of  the  Above,  I  should  rejoice  and  no  longer 
think  of  him  as  lonely.     Believe  you  it  can  be  so  ?  " 

"  Dearest,  we  cannot  better  honor  his  teaching  than  by 
emulating  his  trustfulness.  Do  you  remember  his  saying  that, 
as  perfect  love  casts  out  fear,  so  perfect  knowledge  would  leave 
no  space  for  hope  ?     Zoe,  let  us  cherish  hope." 


CHAPTER  XII. 


The  time  that  has  elapsed  since  I  commenced  my  labor  of 
love,  has  been  far  longer  than  I  anticipated.     I  hoped  also  to 


BY  AND  BY.  459 

have  given  a  much  fuller  account,  and  to  have  told  it  in  fewer 
words.  My  principal  difficulty  has  been  to  make  a  selection 
from  the  mass  of  materials  which  have  flowed  in  upon  me  from 
all  quarters, — materials  of  which  each  item  is  a  separate  testi- 
monial to  the  excellencies  I  undertook  to  exhibit. 

For  one  reason  in  particular  I  rejoice  that  my  work  is  finish- 
3d,  however  imperfect  and  inadequate  it  be.  It  is  a  reason 
which  w^ould  have  had  his  eager  sympathy  had  he  lived. 
Already  are  the  semi-civilized  populations  of  Africa  regarding 
liim  as  more  than  man,  and  seeking  a  place  to  assign  to  him 
in  their  ecclesiastical  calendars ;  not  seeing,  in  their  super- 
stitious folly,  that  to  claim  for  him  a  rank  of  that  above  human- 
ity is  to  detract  from  his  merits  as  a  man.  He  himself  would 
be  the  first  to  declare,  could  he  have  foreseen  the  occasion,  that 
his  sole  miracle-workers  were  Heart,  Brain,  and  Circumstance. 
"  Love  me,  if  ye  will.  Follow  me,  if  ye  can,  in  that  wdiich  I 
"have  done  well.     But  worship  only  the  Supreme." 

If  this  memoir  achieve  no  other  end  than  to  show  the  peo- 
ples who  seek  thus  to  honor  him,  that  they  are  thereby  doing 
him  dishonor,  and  not  him  only,  but  the  Creation  in  which  he 
was  a  factor,  I  shall  deem  myself  fully  repaid.  For  I  shall  have 
done  that  which  he  Avould  desire  to  have  done,  and  done  it  in 
the  spirit  he  would  approve. 

I  trust  that  it  w^ll  fulfil  this  end,  and  yet  another  also ;  and 
that  the  example  here  set  forth  will  incite  many  to  whom 
these  days  of  vast  accumulated  wealth  and  enormous  scientific 
appliance  have  given  the  power,  like  him  to — 

"  Fly,  discaged,  to  sweep, 
In  ever-highering  oagle-circles,  up 
To  the  great  Sua  of  glory,  and  tbence  swoop 
Down  upon  all  things  base,  and  dash  them  dead ; " 

as  sang  his  favorite  poet  of  the  Victorian  era,  of  one  who  might 
well  have  passed  for  his  prototype. 

And  for  those,  too,  who  are  neither  wealthy  nor  learned,  may 
ho,  without  being  summoned  from  his  chosen  rest  in  the  deeps 
of  air,  prove  ever  nigh  in  their  hearts  and  minds  as  a  controll- 
ing ideal  of  their  aspirations. 


460  BY  AND  BY. 

In  his  divine  simplicity  and  comprehension,  the  man  himself 
was  far  greater  than  aught  that  he  said  or  did,  or  than  can  he 
said  of  him.  Of  his  principal  achievement,  I  will  only  add  that 
the  ocean-stream,  whose  first  rush  into  the  Sahara  we  witnessed 
together,  is  now  a  steady  and  equable  current,  just  strong 
enough  to  replace  the  loss  by  evaporation  of  the  warm  and 
shallow  sea  which  occupies  the  place  of  the  desert  up  to  the 
very  borders  of  the  plateau  of  Soudan.  Already  has  this  new 
creation  proved  beneficial  to  the  climate  of  tlie  surrounding 
regions.  Clouds  heavy  with  moisture  now  fling  their  grateful 
shadows,  and  freely  pour  their  abundance  on  the  once  accursed 
plains.  And  no  longer  do  the  toilsome  paths  of  the  sandy 
desert  whiten  beneath  the  bones  of  its  travellers,  but  above 
them  speed  the  swift  electric  ships  and  gladsome  sails. 

The  moral  victory  is  greater  even  than  the  physical.  Jeru- 
salem has  avowed  her  share  in  tlie  Emperor's  deed,  and  is  not 
ashamed  to  make  amends.  Avenil  deemed  it  due  to  his  friend's 
memory,  and  to  international  justice,  to  bring  the  complicity  of 
the  Jews  before  the  Council  of  Federated  Nations.  The  offence 
was  held  a  serious  one,  for  it  was  committed  by  one  member  of 
the  Federation  against  another  member.  That  the  exasperation 
of  Egypt  has  been  allayed  without  exacting  exemplary  retribu- 
tion, is  due  solely  to  the  memory  of  him  who  sacrificed  himself 
to  avert  her  destruction..  It  is  as  a  tribute  to  that  memory 
that  Egypt  has  consented  to  bury  in  oblivion  her  ancient  feud 
with  Israel,  and  to  grasp  in  amity  the  hand  of  Ethiopia. 

May  it  be  that  by  the  life  and  death  of  Christmas  Carol, 
more  than  one  Eastern  Question  will  be  advanced  towards  its 
final  solution  !" 


THE    EXD. 


